28° GiroSardegna

The GiroSardegna 2024 program was published in September 2023 in its classic structure: two race routes (GranGiro and MedioGiro) with six stages to compete and within these an International Middle Distance Championship and a National Combined Championship…

… the hotel chosen was “super” (the Club Hotel Marina Beach****) and the 330 reserved rooms were already filling up with old and new friends day by day; at the end of October we had already exceeded 100 members, which in December would probably have become 400 and then reached 500 by the time registration closed on 28 February 2024!

In short, everything was going as expected… but it wasn’t enough for me; for some time I was looking for “things” to improve an event that is already absolutely more than valid!

I had eliminated the Team Time Trial and replaced it with a Circuit stage in which I had wanted the “division of the sexes” (men competed in the morning and women in the afternoon), but it wasn’t enough for me: I felt that the “something” I was waiting for would arrive…

Then one day, by pure chance, I visited the Bidderosa Naturalistic Oasis not far from Orosei, an 860 hectare park with 5 dream coves; forest, beaches, ponds and pure Nature and I said to myself “it would be really fantastic if all the participants in next year’s GiroSardegna could see it!”

  But the roads inside that Earthly Paradise were unpaved and although there are events that seek out unpaved roads (the Eroica, the Strade Bianche, etc.), I certainly couldn’t let the GranGiro and MedioGiro pass through them… but day after day the “something” grew and consolidated, until it became what, without knowing it, I was looking for: the GiroSardegnaGravel!

Thus was born the first outline of the “Bidderosa Gravel circuit”: a spectacular stage/game intended only for GiroSardegna members which then, day after day, became what it is now: one of the tests of the UCI Gravel World Series!

Obviously the recognition that the UCI wanted to give to Sardinia fills me with satisfaction, because it attests to the trust that the governing body of world cycling has placed in GiroSardegna, recognizing its organizational quality and deeming it worthy of being a world selection event!

It is true that I had to review some details of the program because the “big news” made it necessary, but there is no need to fear: the GiroSardegna will remain what it has always been preserving the formula that everyone has liked for about thirty years, and yet he adds “that something extra”.

And in the 5th stage, forgetting the General Ranking for a day, the men and women registered will be able to limit themselves to doing just one lap of the Gravel Circuit, pedaling relaxed in areas that they would never have been able to see if “this thing” had not manifested itself (it will have right inside the enclosures of animals that graze in the wild or on the sand of the splendid beaches of the Oasis)!

… but the Women (by engaging in two Laps of the Circuit) and the Men (with three Laps of the Circuit) if they want to do so, will ALSO be able to gain the right to participate in the Gravel World Championship: it will be enough to be at the finish line within the 25th position of each category!

But being a World Series event (25 races in 19 nations) can and must be an even broader showcase for a GiroSardegna that deserves the world spotlight and for an Island that has the right to have it!

And perhaps, for the Gravel Champions, it could also be a reason to discover the 28th edition of a cycling event that starts from a very high base to become even bigger!!!

Ultimately, the GiroSardegna 2024 is an opportunity not to be missed, read the program, choose the method of participation but, above all, sign up now if you want to be there!!

                                                                                                                   Tonino Scarpitti
Presidente della Mare e Monti