Saturday, May 20, begins in the Valais just below Friday’s mountaintop finish and travels across 70km of Swiss roads before crossing the border back to Italy. It only takes 35.7km from the start in Sierre for the peloton to encounter the only climb of the day, a challenging 20.2km ascent of Passo del Sempione. The first-category climb begins in Brig and averages 6.5%, with a stiff stretch at 14% after the first 3km.
It is on the technical descent among a series of tunnels that the corsa rosa returns to Italian soil, the steep banks providing a launchpad for the final 124km in Italy and all of it downhill. A pair of intermediate sprints, at Villadossola and Stresa, are sprinkled on the way.
The route passes Lake Maggiore on the approach to Cassano Magnago, where the sprinters who survived the early climb could seek glory. However, they will have to survive two small uncategorised climbs with 16 kilometres remaining to reach the final flat finish.
