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The Giro d'Italia has been held since 1909, but la maglia rosa, the iconic pink jersey of the race leader, was introduced 22 years later, in 1931. In this 90 years, the pink jersey has undoubtedly established itself as one of the most recognizable distinctive jerseys in the cycling world, at the level of the yellow jersey of the Tour de France or the rainbow jersey of the world champion. In these 90 years, the best cyclists in the world have dressed in pink: Alfredo Binda, Fausto Coppi and Eddy Merckx lead the list with five victories each, although the list of great champions of the Italian grand tour is endless, and includes names such as Learco Guerra, Gino Bartali, Jacques Anquetil, Felice Gimondi, Bernard Hinault, Francesco Moser, Laurent Fignon, Giani Bugno, Miguel Indurain, Tony Rominger, Marco Pantani, Alberto Contador, Michele Scarponi or Vincenzo Nibali, among many others.

To celebrate the anniversary, the organization proposes a highly recommended exhibition that can be visited virtually on the official website of the race www.giroditalia.it.

Route

With the time trials on stages 1 and 21, it is guaranteed that all the kilometers of this Giro will be contested, from start to finish. The first week does not contain stages categorized as high mountain, but stages 4 and 6 have top hill finishes and can stablish the first differences in the general classification. Stage 9, ending in Campo Felice with a final sterrato sector, and stage 11, with multiple gravel sections, will set the tone for the second week, while almost the entire mountain stages are concentrated in a very tough final week: stages 14, 16, 17, 19 and 20 will put all riders to the test, including those who are contesting the cyclamino points jersey, as they will have to suffer to avoid arriving outside time limit.

Startlist and favorites

The favorites on paper are the winner of the 2019 Tour de France Egan Bernal (1200), the three grand tours winner Vincenzo Nibali (800), or the winner of the 2018 Vuelta a España, Simon Yates (800). In addition to these three riders, other men who credit top10s in grand tours are João Almeida (1200), Mikel Landa (1000), Daniel Martin (600), Hugh John Carthy (800), Romain Bardet (400), Jay Hindley (600) , Felix Großschartner (600), Damiano Caruso (400), Pello Bilbao (800), George Bennet (600), Marc Soler (600), Pavel Sivakov (600), Fausto Masnada (600), Mikel Nieve (400) and Domenico Pozzovivo (400).

Also among the candidates for the GC are Alexandr Vlasov (800), who will lead Astana - Premier Tech, and Remco Evenepoel (1000), who returns after his serious crash. In recent statements, Evenepoel has put himself at the service of Almeida, although if he feels good he will dispute stages or even the general classification, as the young Belgian has talent to spare.

With the mountain stages concentrated at the end of the race and many riders playing for victory, it is likely that the maglia azzurra of the mountain classification will end up in the hands of a GC candidate, although there will undoubtedly be riders who specifically have this Goal: Ruben Guerreiro (600) and Giulio Ciccone (600) are the last two winners of this classification, and they will be at the start of the race.

As for the maglia ciclamino of the points classification, Peter Sagan (1200) starts as the main favorite, as he has 7 Tour de France’s green jerseys. The Slovakian will surely want a ciclamino jersey for his already spectacular trophy list. His main rivals for sprints will presumably be Caleb Ewan (1200), Giacomo Nizzolo (800), Elia Viviani (800), Fernando Gaviria (800), Dylan Groenewegen (600) and Tim Merlier (400).