Società Ciclistica Valdostana, during the final of the national beauty contest “Miss Ciclismo”, has unveiled the all venues which will host the stages of the 55th edition of Giro Ciclistico Internazionale della Valle d’Aosta Under 23. In the elegant setting of the Casino of Saint-Vincent, the organizing committee has raised the curtain on the five stages that, across France, Piedmont and Aosta Valley, will decree the winner of 2018. The grand opening will be on Wednesday, July 11th along the French roads with the uphill prologue, already tested in the last edition, from Saint-Gervais Mont Blanc to Saint-Nicolas-de-Veroce. The next day, Thursday July 12th, the peloton will return to Aosta Valley with the stage that will start from Rhêmes-Saint-Georges and will end, after the "mythical" climb of Colle San Carlo, to Rhêmes-Notre-Dame. Friday 13th, the action will move to Piedmont with the Tavagnasco - Quassolo. The Val d'Ayas will then be the protagonist of the Saturday 14th stage with the Antagnod - Champoluc. The great finale will take place on Sunday, July 15th with the "classic" Valtourneche - Breuil Cervinia, with the last sector of the stage which will cover the same course of the twentieth stage (scheduled for May 26th) of the Giro d'Italia 2018.

«We are very proud to introduce the locations of the stages in December, I think it's quite unusual for Giro della Valle d'Aosta, and for sure it the result of the hard work made during these years by the amazing team which I have the pleasure to coordinate.» - President of Società Ciclistica Valdostana, Riccardo Moret, said - «Also this year we opted for five stages instead of six in order to give to this event a new and bright future. In this specific context it's a clash what happened with the international calendar: as every year we received from UCI the draft of the 2018 calendar, where our canonical week of July was free from other events. In recent weeks we have instead learned directly from the press that European Under 23 Championship has been scheduled for that week indeed, by the way, with absolutely no warning and in total indifference to our calendar reservation. Now, we do not know if the responsibility of the incident is due to the UCI or the UEC, certainly the international institutions that preside over this sport have shown, this time, a poor consideration for the Organizers, circumstance that does not bode well for the future of this sport. The most serious thing of the story is then not even having received, don't want to say apologies, but not even a communication. In conclusion I can say that, fortunately, the route of the European Championship is for sprinters and it won't cause us an excessive damage from the point of view of riders at the start: but the episode could not be kept silent.»

Stages Town of the 2018 edition, scheduled from 11 to 15 July next:

• July 11th SAINT-GERVAIS MONT-BLANC / SAINT NICOLAS DE VEROCE

• July 12th RHÊMES-SAINT-GEORGES / RHÊMES-NOTRE-DAME

• July 13th TAVAGNASCO / QUASSOLO

• July 14th ANTAGNOD / CHAMPOLUC

• July 15th VALTOURNENCHE / BREUIL CERVINIA