Next August, for the first time in the history of the 2025 Vuelta a España, the start will be in Italy, and will likely open with the trademark dramatic opening group sprint stage and an uphill finish on stage 3.

This summer, Vuelta director Javier Guigen has already confirmed that Piemonte in northwestern Italy is a strong candidate to host the start. If realized, this would be the third consecutive time the Vuelta will start abroad, following Lisbon in 2024 and Monaco in 2026.

According to Torino's local newspaper, TorinoCronaca, the opening stage from Venaria Reale, a northwestern suburb of Turin where the Giro d'Italia started in 2024 and 2021, will end in Novara.

Once the route for the 2024 opening stage is finalized, the Vuelta will roll back the years. The first time the first day had a flat mass start since Vigo in 2007, and the first stage winner and first lead that summer was the fast Italian Daniele Bennati.

Following the countryside and flats of eastern Piedmont in stage 1, the second stage was a rugged day through the southern Langhe region. Starting in San Maurizio Canavese, stage 3 will finish in Ceres, a town at the foot of the Alps.

Stage 4 will start in Bussoleno in western Piedmont, an ideal location to visit all areas of Piedmont and return to Spain.

Despite the terrain being very unfamiliar in Italy, it is not uncommon for the Vuelta to have several tough summit finishes in the early stages; in 2021 and 2023, the first summit finish was on stage 3, when the pandemic-stricken start was changed to the Basque In 2020, the first stage took place in the first stage.

The Piedmont region invests heavily in attracting major sporting events, especially cycling: it will host the Grande Partenza of the Giro in 2021 and 2024, the stage finish and stage start of the Tour de France in 2024, and the 2024 2024 men's and women's Tour de l'Avignon, which ended at the top of the region's Colle delle Finestre dirt road.

To further increase its relevance to cycling, the stage finish of the Giro d'Italia 2025 is also expected to be in Sestriere. Sestriere is a ski station in the region and has played host to countless cycling races and high-altitude training teams. Finally, the Tour de Lavenere is expected to return to Piedmont in 2027.

According to the recently released UCI road calendar, next year's Vuelta is scheduled to start on Saturday, August 23, nearly a week later than the 2024 start date in Lisbon; according to TorinoCronaca, the Piedmont regional spending forecast for the Vuelta start 7 million euro budget has been published, so an announcement officially confirming the Vuelta start in Piedmont could reportedly be made as early as November 17.

Italy has never been visited since La Vuelta began in 1935, but geographically Piedmont's start is not the furthest from Spain that the Vuelta has ever begun. Turin is some 800 km from Spain, but the start of the 2009 Vuelta at the Assen circuit in the northern Netherlands was nearly twice that distance.