Giro d’Italia

   Second only to the Tour de France in cycling prestige, the Giro d’Italia takes place every year in May. The first event took place in 1909, with eight stages for a total of 2,448 kilometers. The first winner was Luigi Ganna, who also won the following year. His prize was the then magnificent sum of 5,325 lire. Italians dominated the race until the 1950s. The first foreign winner was Hugo Koblet of Switzerland in 1950. Koblet was followed by another Swiss, Carlo Clerici, in 1954, and then by the Luxembourger Charly Gaul, who won in 1956 thanks to a historic stage victory on Monte Bondone near Trento during a blizzard. Gaul also won in 1959. The 1960s and early 1970s were dominated by “the cannibal,” Eddie Merckx of Belgium, who won five times between 1968 and 1974, including three consecutive victories between 1972 and 1974. Merckx shares the overall record for victories with two Italians, Fausto Coppi and Alfredo Bindi, who is the only other cyclist to win three Giri in a row (1927–1929). In recent years, Italians have begun to dominate the event again: All 10 races from 1997 to 2006 were won by Italian cyclists, although this is in part due to the fact that the crowded calendar of modern cyclists has led to some of the leading non-Italian stars deserting the race to prepare for the Tour de France. The Giro is organized each year by Italy’s best-selling sporting newspaper, La Gazzetta dello Sport, which is printed on pink newspaper. The leading rider therefore wears a pink jersey. The race, especially the dramatic mountain stages in the Alpsand the Dolomites, is watched by hundreds of thousands of people each year and by millions on television. Cycling, after soccer (calcio), is Italy’s most passionately followed sport.