On Sunday 18 October the Veneto Classic, a 1.Pro race in its sixth edition, runs from Cittadella to Bassano del Grappa: 158.5 km, about 2,200 m of climbing and six passages over the cobbled wall of the Tisa. It is the last race of the Italian season and the last day of the UCI team ranking, which gives or takes away the wild card for the 2027 Giro. The favourite is world champion Brandon McNulty. Racing against the points table is Bardiani CSF 7 Saber.
The route: fifty kilometres of flat, then the Tisa
The flat and the first climb
The race starts from piazza Pierobon in Cittadella and for around fifty kilometres of flat roads asks nothing of the riders: the route passes through Sandrigo, Breganze and Fara. Anyone who wants to move early has the road, but nothing to hold on to.
Then comes the first Tisa, in Colceresa, at km 52.8, with 105.7 km still to go. After the summit there is a fast descent to the Rosina circuit, to be ridden twice, and then to the final circuit with five more passages over the Tisa.
The Tisa and the Rosina
The Tisa is a 330 m cobbled wall averaging 15.2%, with ramps of 20%: about 50 m of climbing in a single push, from Colceresa to the top. It is climbed six times, the first with 105.7 km to go and the last with 19.1. The circuit that contains it is 12.4 km long, so there is no time to catch a breath between one wall and the next.
The Rosina is a different climb, longer and more regular: 2.1 km at an average of 6.5%, with a maximum of 8%, from Valle San Floriano to the turn-off for Bassano. It is climbed twice, with 91.6 and 79.1 km to go, on a 12.6 km circuit between Marostica and Bassano. It hurts, but it is the Tisa that makes the gaps.
Where the race will be decided
The last Tisa and the Soarda ramp
The selection becomes definitive on the last Tisa, 19 km from the finish. After five climbs of a wall like this, whoever reaches the sixth passage at the front is already a thinned-out group, and those who have spent too much do not come back.
The exit from the circuit is 16 km from the finish. Then there is Contrà Soarda, 400 m at 13%, with the summit about 4 km from the line: it is the last ramp before Bassano and the last chance to drop those who are still at the front.
Five editions, five different winners
The race, born in 2021 at the wish of Filippo Pozzato, has no master: Samuele Battistella won in 2021, Marc Hirschi in 2022, Davide Formolo in 2023, Magnus Cort Nielsen in 2024 and Sakarias Koller Løland in 2025. That makes five different winners in five editions.
In 2025 Løland won the sprint ahead of Florian Vermeersch and Diego Ulissi: the repeated wall selects, but the race can stay open until Bassano.
The favourites: McNulty and the others
UAE and the world champion
There are 21 teams of seven riders at the start. The favourite is McNulty, the world champion on the road in Montréal and fifth at Il Lombardia, who rides for UAE Team Emirates-XRG.
With him is Benoît Cosnefroy, winner of the Coppa Sabatini: UAE have more than one card to play when the Tisa breaks up the bunch.
Who can beat them
The defending winner, Løland, rides for Uno-X alongside Anthon Charmig, second at the Gran Piemonte: two leaders in one team. Among the other teams at the start are Jayco AlUla and Groupama-FDJ United, with Madouas and Germani.
The Italians at the start
Christian Scaroni and Diego Ulissi ride for XDS Astana: Ulissi was third in 2025, behind Løland and Vermeersch. They are the two Italians best suited to exploit their explosiveness on the final ramps.
Among the younger riders are Ludovico Crescioli, at Polti VisitMalta, and Alessandro Fancellu, at MBH Bank CSB Telecom Fort.
Bardiani are playing for the 2027 Giro d’Italia
Sixty points to win
From 2026 the wild cards for the Grand Tours go only to teams in the top 30 of the end-of-season ranking: the threshold was the top 50 for 2024 and the top 40 for 2025. The season ends in Bassano. In the ranking of 13 October Bardiani CSF 7 Saber are 31st with 2,644.15 points, 35.85 behind 30th place. The full numbers are in the piece Bardiani CSF 31st in the UCI ranking: outside the top 30, the 2027 Giro d’Italia is at risk.
At the Giro del Veneto Bardiani took 20 points with Filippo Turconi’s 12th place, Euskaltel-Euskadi 30, MBH Bank 86. Bardiani are now missing around 60 points on Euskaltel; MBH Bank are around 150 points higher.
The place to take is Euskaltel’s, not that of Picnic PostNL, 30th with 2,680 points. Picnic are a WorldTeam and go to the Giro anyway, and they ride the Tour of Guangxi, which finishes the same day, 18 October: Biesterbos’s 80 points are not yet in the ranking of 13 October and are enough to take them to around 2,760, above Euskaltel. So 30th place passes to Euskaltel, and that is where Bardiani must get to.
The Veneto Classic sums
The Veneto Classic gives 250 points to the winner, then 170, 140, 120, 100, 80, 70, 60, 50 and 40 down to tenth place, with points down to 40th. If Euskaltel score no points, Bardiani need only an eighth place or two finishes that add up to 60 points. If Euskaltel take the 20 points for twelfth, Bardiani need sixth place; with the 40 for tenth, fifth; with the 80 for sixth, the podium. Bardiani, Euskaltel and MBH Bank are all at the start.
Whoever finishes 31st stays out of the 2027 wild cards. Bruno Reverberi, who has led the team since 1982, summed up the problem like this: “if they don’t invite us, how are we supposed to score points…”. la fagIAnata has launched the petition Bardiani CSF at the 2027 Giro d’Italia: the UCI should change the top-30 rule on wild cards, because the UCI should change the rule.
Bardiani’s seven
The team fields Luca Covili, Edward Cruz, Martin Herreño, Martin Marcellusi, Vicente Rojas, Alex Tolio and Filippo Turconi, with sports directors Roberto Reverberi and Alessandro Donati.
The most recent result is Turconi’s, 12th at the Giro del Veneto: two places off the useful points zone on Sunday too, when at least eight are needed in the standings.
Times and where to watch
The team presentation and the sign-on are from 12:00 to 12:45 in piazza Pierobon in Cittadella, where the start village opens at 10:00. The neutralised start is at 13:00, the real start at 13:04. The finish village opens from 14:00 in piazza della Libertà in Bassano; the organisers are aiming for more than 15,000 spectators along the course.
The finish is expected between 16:35 and 16:55, at an average speed between 45 and 41 km/h. Anyone finishing more than 8% behind the winner’s time is outside the time limit.
Live coverage is free-to-air on Rai Sport HD from 15:50 and on RaiPlay; streaming is also available on Discovery+, HBO Max, Eurosport 1 and DAZN. la fagIAnata follows it on the race page. The context of the week is in The Veneto week: Giro del Veneto, Veneto Women and Veneto Classic close the Italian season.
News written with the help of Mnemosyne.
Sources
- PP Sport Events, “Technical guide 2026 ‘Ride the Dreamland’”.
- Veneto Classic, “Route”.
- OA Sport, “Veneto Classic 2026: it will be a spectacle with world champion McNulty at the start”.
- OA Sport, “Where to watch the Veneto Classic 2026 on TV: times, programme, route, streaming”.
- SpazioCiclismo, “Veneto Classic 2026, the provisional start list”.
- Rai Sport, “Radiocorsa” of 15 October 2026.
- Photo: Danysan1, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; processing: la fagIAnata.
