Top Italian all-rounder Alberto Bettiol has confirmed that he aims to make his return to the Giro d'Italia in 2025, with his opportunity to wear the tricolore of reigning National Champion in his country's biggest stage race a major reason for doing so.
Bettiol made the announcement during the reception for the Giglio d'Oro prize, widely considered Italy's top national cycling award for the country's riders.
Bettiol won the men's Giglio d'Oro, while Chiara Consonni and Vittoria Guazzini, gold medallists in the Madison at the Paris Olympics, won the equivalent women's prize.
Racing with Astana Qazaqstan since a mid-year team switch, Bettiol enjoyed a stellar 2024 season, crowned by solo victories in both Milan-Turin and the Italian National Championships and his best Classics campaign since winning the Tour of Flanders back in 2019.
The Italian was also leading the Tour de Suisse overall early on, but injuries from a mid-race crash saw him delayed and then forced to abandon.
''I'm thinking of doing the Giro d'Italia because I haven't been there for a couple of years now," Bettiol, 31, told Italian media outlets including Tuttobiciweb and ANSA during the prize-giving award at Calenzano near the city of Firenze.
"Honestly, the chance to wear the tricolore at the Giro is an even bigger incentive."
Looking back at his victory on home soil in Tuscany, taken after he dropped the remainder of the field on the final climb, Bettiol said that having the chance to wear the national champion's jersey in the Tour de France at the Grand Départ in Firenze was an exceptional moment in his career, not just his season.
"To win it as a Tuscan rider, on a Tuscan circuit, was beautiful. Something that went beyond my expectations," he said
"And then another of those unique things, a dream, something that will never happen again, was also having the Grand Depart of the Tour de France a few steps from where I was born, from my home, and among so many fans. It was truly a great year, I hope to make more and more great ones."
Bettiol's 2025 campaign will be his first full year with Astana Qazaqstan, following the August 15 switchover from his previous, longstanding squad - EF Education-EasyPost.
The Giro d'Italia is the one Grand Tour to date where Bettiol has taken a stage win, back in 2021 on stage 18 to Stradella in northern Italy, after a break of more than 200 kilometres.
Four years on, Bettiol said that he would do his usual first half of the calendar in 2025, starting at the Tour Down Under, where he won the opening prologue time trial in 2023. He'd then continue with his normal Classics program and most likely the Giro d'Italia, but has yet to plan the second half of the season.
