2012 Giro d'Italia: Alpe di Pampeago

This is unconfirmed: Friday, May 24, 2012, the day before the Mortirolo, Stelvio summit stage 20 (yesterday's blog, here) will feature Alpe di Pampeago, and perhaps an unprecedented route that would take riders up the L'Alpe di Pampeago a second time.

The route would begin in Treviso and first ascend the Val di Fiemme. The riders would then ride along Valsugana, a valley, before arriving at the Passo di Manghen. The approach would be from the difficult side from Borgo Valsugana. The 23.4 km 23,4 climb has an average of 7% but the final 7 km have an average of 9.5% with a maximum of 15%.

From Manghen the descent would be towards Molina di Fiemme on a beautiful road. Then Molina to Cavalese to Tesero and from here would begin the climb of the Alpe di Pampeago to 7,650m. The Alpe di Pampeago has been used four time previously in the Giro: Pavel Tonkov won in 1998, Marco Pantani in pink at the time in 1999, Gilberto Simoni in 2003 and Emanuele Sella in 2008.

The possibility of ascending the Alpe di Pampeago two times depends upon the permission of South Tyrol authorities to use certain roads to approach Alpe di Pampeago differently after the descent. Discussions are ongoing.

Again, this is unconfirmed.

The official presentation for the 2012 Giro d'Italia takes place on Monday, October 16, in Milano.

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