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Cycling - Giro d'Italia
History - Important Facts - Teams - Winners - Stages - Rankings
Important Facts
Just like the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España, the Giro d’Italia always has a deserving winner, three riders have won it five times, Alfredo Binda and Fausto Coppi of Italy and the great Belgian, Eddy Merckx.
There have been many other outstanding cyclists who have won the Giro over the years, French heroes Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault and from Spain Miguel Indurain have all one 5 Tours de France and the Giro more than once.
The Italian riders have obviously been the big winners, among which are: Felice Gimondi, Gino Bartoli, Ivan Gotti, Gilberto Simoni and Paolo Savoldelli have all shown there winning ways, but the battles between Giuseppe Saronni and Francesco Moser in the 80’s are epic. The strangest rider to have taken part in the Giro d’Italia was Alfonsina Morini Strada who is the only woman to have ridden the race and finish.
The Giro has started outside of Italy on eight different occasions, Belgium, Greece and the Dutch town of Groningen among the furthest places that hosted the opening individual time trial in 2002. It is known that the Giro’s main difficulties on Italian soil are: the Alps, Dolomites and the Apennines.
The Giro takes place in May so the big climbs can get dreadful weather, snow, rain and cold temperatures which determine the race’s winner.
The future of the Giro d’Italia looks good, since the cycling’s governing body brought in the Pro-Tour all the top 20 teams, these have to ride the race. Many years before they would only get all the Italian teams and a few foreign teams with sponsor interests in Italy, now the race is also shown free on television, where as before it could only be seen on a private station.
The 2005 edition was one of the best for years, top teams, top riders and a hard course brought the race to life. For years the Giro had become a procession until the last hour, until the sprinters took over. The climbers had some good hard stages and the team leaders would do there work for the overall on the hills or the time trial and that was it; now its one of the most exciting stage races from begging to end.
Professional teams are now arranged into divisions, at the top is Pro Tour Teams, there are twenty of those from different countries; the teams are:
Discovery Channel from America, Rabobank from Holland, Quick-Step from Belgium, Davitamon-Lotto from Belgium, T-Mobile Team from Germany, Gerolsteiner from Germany, Liberty Seguros-Wurth Team from Spain, Saunier Duval-Prodir from Spain, Illes Balears from Spain, Euskaltel-Euskadi from Spain, Bouygues Telecom from France, Cofidis, Le Credit Par Telephone from France, Française Des Jeux from France, Credit Agricole from France, CSC from Denmark, Domina Vacanze from Italy, Fassa Bortolo from Italy, Liquigas-Bianchi from Italy, Lampre-Caffita from Italy, Phonak Hearing Systems from Switzerland.
These teams must ride all the big races or the big tours, the main classics and some short stage races to make up the Pro Tour.
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