Since the first Giro d'Italia in 1909, there have been 2,094 stages. This number includes half-stages, prologues, and a small number of stages cancelled mid-race or immediately before the start. This number is up to date after Stage 20 of the 2024 Giro. Since 1931, the race leader following each stage has been awarded the pink jersey (Italian: Maglia rosa).
Although the leader of the classification after each stage gets a pink jersey, he is not considered the winner of the pink jersey, only the wearer. Only after the final stage is complete, the wearer of the pink jersey is considered the winner of the pink jersey, and thereby the winner of the Giro d'Italia. In 2020, British rider Tao Geoghegan Hart became the first cyclist to win the overall pink jersey, having never worn it during the race itself.[1]
In this article first-place-classifications before 1931 are also counted as if a pink jersey was awarded. Nonetheless, the number of pink jerseys awarded is not equal to the number of stages. In the 1912 Giro d'Italia, the race was contested by teams, so no individual cyclist is counted in this statistic. Sometimes more cyclists were leading the classification (1925 after stages 2 and 3, 1929 after stage 2, 1936 after stage 6, 1938 after stages 2 and 3, 1957 after stage 18 and 1973 after the prologue). On the other hand, jerseys were not awarded in between any of the 51 pairs of half-stages that took place during the history of the Giro. Thus, as of 2024, 2,045 pink jerseys have been awarded in the Giro d'Italia to 287 different riders.