The Giro d'Italia is an annual road bicycle race held in May. Established in 1909 by newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport, the Giro is one of cycling's three "Grand Tours"; along with the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España.[1] The race usually covers approximately 3,500 kilometres (2,200 mi), passing through Italy and neighbouring countries such as France.[2] The race is broken into day-long segments, called stages. Individual finishing times for each stage are totalled to determine the overall winner at the end of the race. The course changes every year, but has traditionally finished in Milan.
The rider with the lowest aggregate time at the end of each day is leader of the general classification, and since 1931 wears a pink jersey. Other classifications have also been added, and sometimes removed; the leaders of some of these classifications were also indicated with jerseys, whose colours have varied over the years. As of 2011, the red jersey is worn by the leader of the points classification; the green jersey is worn by the leader of the mountains classification and the white jersey is worn by the leader of the young rider classification.
Alfredo Binda, Fausto Coppi and Eddy Merckx have the most Giro victories, each of them having won the competition five times. Coppi is the youngest winner of the Giro; he was 20 years, 158 days old when he won the 1940 Giro d'Italia.[3] The oldest winner of the Giro is Fiorenzo Magni, who was 34 years old, 180 days when he won the 1955 Giro d'Italia.[4] The fastest victory in the Giro was in 1983, when Giuseppe Saronni won at an average speed of 38.937 kilometres per hour (24.194 mph).[5] Italian cyclists have won the most Giros; 41 cyclists have won 68 Giros between them. Belgian cyclists are second with seven victories, and French riders are third with six wins.[6] The current champion is Tadej Pogačar of UAE Team Emirates, who won the 2024 Giro d'Italia.[7]