File this one under ‘weird but (probably) true’: the organisers of the Giro d’Italia, RCS, are reportedly in discussions with an Australian state about hosting the start of the 2027 Giro d’Italia.
No, that's not 'Austria' with a typo.
The original airing of this came from the Australian media personality, Mike Tomalaris – until late-2021 a decades-long mainstay of Australian broadcaster SBS’s Tour de France coverage. Tomalaris wrote on Instagram that he “[could] reveal officials from state governments have held high level discussions with the view of bringing the opening three stages of Italy’s Grand Tour to Australia in May, 2027.” Aware of the likely knee-jerk response, Tomalaris made plain that “this is not a joke” and “not a rumour”.
The following day, on an episode of The Domestiques podcast – which is co-hosted by Tomalaris – there were further nuggets of information. Tomalaris said that he “[has] it on good authority” from a “very reliable source”, and that he’d “seen the paperwork exclusively”. He had, he said, been asked to “leak the information on my socials”.
While there are a number of reasons that an Australian Giro d’Italia bid seems wildly implausible – distance, jetlag, timezones, to say nothing of the logistics of moving hundreds of riders, team staff and a mountain of equipment to the other side of the world for a few days of racing – let’s play it out as a hypothetical, assessing the concept on its merits.
Not without precedent
Foreign race starts have become an increasingly common part of the Grand Tour landscape. The Tour de France, for instance, began in Denmark in 2022, the Basque Country in 2023, and has future Grand Departs lined up in Barcelona (2026) and Great Britain (2027). The Giro d’Italia is even more daring: in the last decade it has begun in Israel (2018), Hungary (2022) and this year, Albania. In earlier years, the Giro has been as far afield as Northern Ireland, Denmark, and Greece.
While all of these locations are in the northern hemisphere, they’re not without logistical complications of their own: a non-stop drive from Jerusalem to Rome would take 43 hours, or four hours in a plane.
Australia is not the only country with rumours swirling around it for the 2027 Giro d'Italia. According to Cyclingnews, RCS Sport's managing director said that "we would be very happy to come back to Belgium", while Het Nieuwsblad reckons the UAE and Saudi Arabia have both been in the mix, too.
Australia – a continent on the literal other side of the world – is clearly further away. But as evidence that there’s at least a willingness to think outside the box, we can on past evidence probably chalk up an Australia foray for the Giro as something that wouldn’t be immediately ruled out by the race organisers. And presumably there’s a big ol' pay-cheque for the race if it gets on board with the plan.
If so, where?
Australia’s a big country, with most of its population located along the eastern seaboard – especially around its biggest cities Melbourne and Sydney. There’s history of established races near both of those locations: Wollongong, south of Sydney, hosted the 2022 Road World Championships, while Geelong, slightly south of Melbourne, is host to the annual Cadel’s Great Ocean Road Race (and also hosted a Road Worlds, in 2010). Adelaide, capital of South Australia, is the host of Tour Down Under.
There’s somewhere else that I think the Giro’s probably got its sights on, though: Western Australia.
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