The first of eight stages that run 919 kilometres down the spine of northern Italy is a 13-kilometre individual time trial
A year after sudden sickness dashed her dreams of the podium on the velodrome track at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Sarah Van Dam has kept her legs churning on the road. The Victoria cyclist is one of two Canadians competing in the women’s race of the 2025 Giro d’Italia along with Isabella Holmgren of Orillia, Ont.
The first of eight stages that run 919 kilometres down the spine of northern Italy is a 13-kilometre individual time trial – known as the Race of Truth — on Sunday in Bergamo. That will be followed by two hill stages — 99 kilometres on Monday from Clusone to Aprica and 124 kilometres on Tuesday from Vezza d’Orglio to Trento — and the first mountain stage on Wednesday, 156 kilometres from Castello Tesino to Valdobbiadene.
The infamously gruelling Mortirolo climb is not on the route this year but that doesn’t mean the riders get off easily and there will be three summit finishes at Aprica, Pianezze and Monte Nerone. The eighth and final stage will conclude next Sunday with a 139-kilometre ride into the Enzo and Dino Ferrari Autodromo in Imola.
Van Dam began her cycling career with the Victoria Tripleshot team in the Fast Track program at the Juan de Fuca Velodrome, a legacy of the 1994 Commonwealth Games, and is part of a Juan de Fuca Velodrome alumni list that includes 2012 London Olympics bronze-medallist Gillian Carleton, 2020 Tokyo Olympian and 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Jay Lamoureux, 2015 Toronto Pan Am Games gold medallist Evan Carey and 2024 Paris Olympian Erin Attwell.
“The Juan de Fuca velodrome stoked my passion for track cycling. I learned everything about track racing there,” Van Dam, 23, has said. “I race on the road as well. They complement each other when done right. It keeps it interesting. I live in the moment.”
The Islander is riding a big season that began with a win in the women’s scratch race in December at the UCI Track Cycling Champions League race in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, and was as high as second place in the world endurance league season standings behind Olympic gold medallist Katie Archibald of Great Britain. Van Dam followed that up with a third-place finish this year in the Itzulia women’s stage race in May in Spain, third place in the Ronde de Mouscron and fifth place overall in the 2025 Tour of Britain. Van Dam is currently 32nd on the women’s UCI world rankings, a relatively heady standing for a Canadian rider.
Van Dam rides for the German pro team Ceratizit, whose roster of track riders includes 2016 Rio Olympics team pursuit gold medallist Archibald, 2020 Tokyo Olympics team pursuit gold medallist Franziska Brausse of Germany and Spanish star Sandra Alonso Dominguez.
Van Dam has overcome the disappointment of last summer when the world No. 5-ranked Canadian women’s track pursuit team of Victoria riders Van Dam and Attwell along with Maggie Coles-Lyster of Maple Ridge and Ariane Bonhomme of Gatineau, Que., were hit by a bacterial infection at the Paris Olympics that greatly affected their performance.
“We came in with the hopes of fighting for a medal and I truly think if we had a smooth run into our competition we would have been fighting for that medal,” Van Dam told theTimes Colonistin Paris. “But with the cards we were dealt, we gave what we had and that’s all we could really do on the day.”
Although that hurts, because the Olympics are only once every four years, there will always be other days in sports. Van Dam is having some of those this week in Italy as she becomes the second Island cyclist to compete in the Giro after 2012 men’s champion Ryder Hesjedal of Colwood.
Meanwhile, Holmgren, who has often trained on the Island, is also well known to local cycling fans and twice medalled in recent Canadian cyclo-cross championships hosted at Layritz Park in Saanich.
[email protected]