The Giro d'Italia confirms itself as an extraordinary showcase for our Country and now also for Albania, as confirmed by the statements of the authorities present in the room at the official vernissage of the race.

Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri: "For us, it is a great joy because we enthusiastically relaunch the relationship between Rome and the Giro: it's the 50th time a stage touches Rome and the seventh time the pink race ends in our city. It's an evocative fact that the Giro starts from Albania, a leap in history that makes us happy and like other editions in Rome, it will be a success. We will try to involve the city with many events in this particular year because it is the Jubilee and the race will pass through many symbolic places that evoke themes of peace and brotherhood".

Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani added: "We are focusing on sports diplomacy and working with the Giro to promote our beauties, especially the less-known ones. The Giro is an extremely useful tool to showcase our territory, and we are doing so through our diplomatic offices. We have decided that the Giro would become a diplomatic sports ambassador, and in our ministry, we have an office dedicated to sports diplomacy as a tool not only for competition and social purposes but to export the sports industry product, such as clothing and bikes. The Giro will be a valid support for diplomacy and for my ministry. We'll start from a friendly country, and with this, we give strong support to the Western Balkans, whom we want to enter the European community soon. Opening up to Albania means we are ready to welcome them to Europe".

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama: "It is a great privilege to be here to unite Italy and Albania once again. I must say that with Rcs we made a good deal: to Greenland, I would say 'take Cairo to negotiate with Trump'. I'm a particular Juventus fan - also because my great passion is José Mourinho - I love Italy and the Azzurri, even if you have really... ugly stadiums. I feel a bit strange in this room because I'm among the few who can only ride a bike: I don't drive cars or anything else, just the bike. Until a few years ago, we were closed like Korea; the only way to open up to the rest of the world was Italian radio, and we followed the Giro d'Italia with Gimondi and Merckx, cheering without seeing the images and imagining we could go to the other side of the sea one day. Sports always helped us hope, and we knew that on the other side of the sea, there was life. Seeing Albania here today is something wonderful, I am honored and grateful, and I want to thank who took the first step, the Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida".

And further: "Albania is a small territory, but we have everything: mountains, two seas, and rivers. The three stages will showcase our country, and we can show our territory like a film. When we started the country's rebirth path, the Italians who came to us were really few; since 2022, we have been growing, and in 2024, we reached 1.4 million Italian tourists, and we expect even more because we have a lot to show. Albania is still an innocent territory, very much like post-war Italy: we would like not to make the same mistakes, but we know it won't be so. I think Italians are Albanians dressed in Versace..." Rama concluded jokingly.

As for the technical comment, we invite you to listen to the words of Davide Cassani at the end of the recently published episode of our Bla Bla Bike: don't miss it!