2021 Giro d'Italia


The 2021 Giro d'Italia was the 104th edition of the Giro, a three-week Grand Tour cycling stage race. It started on 8 May and finished on 30 May. On 26 May 2019, the race organisers RCS Sport originally announced that the start of the 2021 Giro would be in Sicily, Italy. However, on 4 February 2021, RCS Sport announced that the race would instead start in Turin, with the rest of the race route being announced on 24 February 2021.
The race was won by Egan Bernal of, winning his first Giro title and his second Grand Tour victory overall. He became the second Colombian to win the Giro after Nairo Quintana did so in 2014. He first took the maglia rosa when he won atop the gravel finish at Campo Felice on stage 9. He proceeded to extend his lead in the second week, culminating in his victory on the shortened queen stage to Cortina d'Ampezzo. Despite his difficulties in the final week, he still had enough advantage to confirm his victory in Milan. He won by 1' 29" ahead of Damiano Caruso of. Going into the race, Caruso was initially supposed to be a domestique for his team's original leader, Mikel Landa. After Landa crashed out on stage 5, Caruso took up the mantle as the team's leader. Caruso proceeded to consistently get high placings on the mountain stages before taking a stage victory on the last mountain stage to Alpe Motta. The last place on the podium was occupied by Simon Yates of, 4' 15" behind Bernal. After constantly losing time in the first two weeks, Yates peaked in the third week, leading to him taking a stage victory on the summit finish to Alpe di Mera.
In the race's other classifications, Peter Sagan of took the points classification title. He first took the maglia ciclamino after winning the sprint on stage 10. Geoffrey Bouchard of took the mountains classification title after consistently taking maximum points on the stages' early climbs. As a result of him winning the maglia rosa, Bernal also took home the young riders classification as the best-placed rider under the age of 25. Dries De Bondt of took home the titles in the intermediate sprint classification and the combativity classification while Simon Pellaud of won the breakaway classification as the rider who had the highest number of kilometres on the breakaway. In the team classifications, Ineos Grenadiers took home the Trofeo Fast Team as the team whose top three riders had the lowest aggregate time while Team Bahrain Victorious took home the fair play classification as one of the three teams who did not get any sanction in the whole race. They won the tiebreaker as a result of Caruso taking the second place in the GC.

Teams

Twenty-three teams received invitations to participate in the 2021 Giro d'Italia. All nineteen UCI WorldTeams were entitled and obliged to enter the race, and they were joined by four second-tier UCI ProTeams., the best-performing UCI ProTeam in 2020, received an automatic invitation, while the other three teams were selected by RCS Sport, the organisers of the Giro. and continued their streak of wild card invitations to the race, while made its Grand Tour debut. The teams were announced on 10 February 2021.
On 15 April 2021, after positive doping tests for Matteo Spreafico and Matteo De Bonis left them facing a potential suspension, withdrew their participation from the race. As a result, regular invitee, which had participated in the last three Giros but had initially missed out on an invitation, were awarded the last wildcard invitation.
The teams participating in the race are:
UCI WorldTeams
UCI ProTeams

  • Pre-race favourites

The pre-race favourites were the 2019 Tour de France champion Egan Bernal and Simon Yates, who won the lead-up race, Tour of the Alps. Their main challenger was considered to be Remco Evenepoel, despite not having raced since a crash in the 2020 Il Lombardia. Other top contenders were Hugh Carthy, after his third place in the 2020 Vuelta a España, former podium finisher Mikel Landa, Emanuel Buchmann, Aleksandr Vlasov, Pavel Sivakov, and two Maglia Rosa wearers from the 2020 edition – João Almeida and Jai Hindley, the eventual 2020 runner-up. Multiple Grand Tour winner Vincenzo Nibali also started the race, but due to only recently having recovered from injury, was not mentioned among the favourites.
Riders believed to be the main contenders for victories on the sprint stages were Caleb Ewan, Peter Sagan, Dylan Groenewegen, Fernando Gaviria, Elia Viviani, Giacomo Nizzolo and Tim Merlier.

Route and stages

The full route, consisting of 21 stages covering a distance of and an elevation gain of over, was announced by RCS Sport on 24 February 2021. The race was bookended by two individual time trials in Turin and Milan, respectively. There were six summit finishes, the first of which is on stage 6 to Ascoli Piceno. The summit finishes also included the infamous Monte Zoncolan on stage 14 and three of the last five stages. There were also six stages designed for the sprinters to contest and two rest days, after the tenth and sixteenth stages.
Though stage 16 to Cortina d'Ampezzo did not feature a summit finish, it was initially earmarked as the queen stage by race organisers, as riders were due to cover over of elevation gain, and the Passo Pordoi was due to award the Cima Coppi award to the first rider to cross it as the highest climb of the race. However, due to poor weather, the stage was rerouted to remove the Pordoi and Fedaia, significantly shortening it and leaving the Passo Giau as the only climb in the Dolomites. With the removal of the Passo Pordoi, the Passo Giau also became the Cima Coppi of the race.
The nineteenth stage was also changed three days before it was run. The original route had the riders climb the Mottarone climb and then descend into Gignese, however, following the Stresa–Mottarone cable car crash, the route was changed out of respect to those affected to remove the climb, leading the riders straight to Gignese. The stage was shortened by.

Classification leadership

  • On stage 2, Edoardo Affini, who was second in the points classification, wore the cyclamen jersey, because first placed Filippo Ganna wore the pink jersey as the leader of the general classification. Because Ganna and Affini were also the first two riders in the young rider classification, Tobias Foss, who was third in the young rider classification, wore the white jersey.
  • On stage 3, Edoardo Affini, who was second in the young rider classification, wore the white jersey, because first placed Filippo Ganna wore the pink jersey as the leader of the general classification. For the same reason, Tobias Foss wore the white jersey on stage 4.
  • On stage 6, Vincenzo Albanese, who was second in the mountains classification, wore the blue jersey, because first placed Joe Dombrowski didn't start the stage after a crash and a subsequent injury late in stage 5.
  • On stages 7–9, Remco Evenepoel, who was second in the young rider classification, wore the white jersey, because first placed Attila Valter wore the pink jersey as the leader of the general classification. On stages 10 and 11, Evenepoel continued wearing the white jersey, but with Egan Bernal as the leader of the general classification. For the same reason, Aleksandr Vlasov wore the white jersey on stages 12–21.

    Race Overview

The Big Start towards central Italy

The Giro was originally slated to have its stage one Big Start in Sicily, but it was relocated to begin in Turin.
The first stage was a prologue-like short individual time trial just under nine kilometres long. Filippo Ganna won the stage and pink jersey with Edoardo Affini and Tobias Foss making up the rest of the stage podium. This was the second year in a row Ganna won the opening stage. Riders from took 1st and 10th place as riders from and took six of the other eight places in the top 10. The gap between the important GC riders was wide, from the newcomer Foss and João Almeida finishing 3rd and 4th to Egan Bernal and Mikel Landa finishing 24th and 77th. A three-man breakaway broke clear as soon as the flag dropped on stage 2. The break, composed of Vincenzo Albanese, Umberto Marengo, and Filippo Tagliani were allowed to build up a gap of +4:20 before the peloton began to bring them back with Albanese taking the points for the mountains jersey. The sprinter's teams did their work neutralizing and exterminating the breakaway threat, setting up a final sprint where Tim Merlier won the day ahead of Giacomo Nizzolo and Elia Viviani. As a result of this victory Merlier took over the lead in the points classification and would defend it for the next few stages.
Prior to the start of stage 2 a moment of silence was held in memory of Wouter Weylandt.
Stage 3 began with heavy rain, but despite the conditions an escape bunch of seven riders eventually formed with Albanese among them as he was seeking to defend his mountains jersey, which he was able to do. Eventually the weather cleared and the gap of the escapees grew to over +6:00 before the peloton began reeling them in. Specifically it was the team of Peter Sagan who turned up the pace in an attempt to drop Sagan's rivals and set him up to go for the stage win. With 100 kilometres to go Maciej Bodnar was at the front for Team Bora and the gap was down to +4:20 and continuing to drop. For the majority of the stage Team Bora was the only team doing the chasing. With the peloton continuously closing the gap late in the stage Simon Pellaud made an attack and Taco van der Hoorn was the only other rider able to stay with him. With about ten kilometres to go teams and began assisting in bringing back the final escapees in order to give their sprinters a chance at the win. With about nine kilometres to go van der Hoorn launched an attack which dropped Pellaud. As a result, he was the last man up the road during the final few kilometres and he managed to beat the hard charging peloton to the finish line by just four seconds as Davide Cimolai took 2nd and Sagan settled for 3rd. The overall situation had Ganna in the lead by approximately +0:20 ahead of Foss, Almeida, Evenepoel and Cavagna. Stage 4 was another overcast, dreary day except this time the rain was worse towards the end of the stage. A breakaway of 25 riders eventually formed as groups of differing riders attacked, which would eventually produce the stage winner. The gap opened up to +5:00 in relatively little time, but this group didn't build a large enough lead where it would be a certainty the winner would come from it. Francesco Gavazzi attacked the small categorized climbs to defend the mountains jersey of his teammate Albanese and about midway through the stage Christopher Juul-Jensen launched an attack at the front of the breakaway which only Quinten Hermans and Rein Taaramäe answered. Hermans was dropped before long and for much of the day Juul-Jensen and Taramae led the race with Taaramäe being in a position to take the pink jersey if the attack was successful. Eventually the duo was caught, by another duo of Alessandro De Marchi of and Joe Dombrowski of, both of whom had the opportunity to take the race lead. Dombrowski launched the decisive attack with four kilometres to go and soloed to the line for the stage win, rising to 2nd in the overall standings and also taking over the lead in the mountains classification as De Marchi crossed the finish line in 2nd, but took over the pink jersey. As far as the GC contenders were concerned Aleksandr Vlasov was the highest placed in 7th overall, Evenepoel was in 8th, Hugh Carthy, who finished on the podium in the most recent Grand Tour, was in 10th, Bernal in 11th, Landa in 15th, former winner of all three grand tours Vincenzo Nibali in 25th and Tobias Foss had fallen from 3rd place overall after stage 1 all the way down to 31st at +2:42 behind the leader.
Stage 5 began with Filippo Tagliani of and Umberto Marengo attacking early. Due to the success of breakaways during the first week the peloton did not give them much room and they were brought back with just over 100 kilometres remaining in the stage. Another group of three riders attacked later in the stage, but they were caught with 3 kilometres to go as the leadout trains got up to speed for the sprint finish. Caleb Ewan won the day as Nizzolo took 2nd who was followed by Viviani, Sagan and Fernando Gaviria. Nizzolo took over the lead in the points classification from Merlier. During the stage Joe Dombrowski, who was in position to possibly take the pink jersey in the coming stages, hit a race official which caused a multi-rider crash. Pre-race favorite Mikel Landa was seriously injured with broken ribs and a broken collarbone and had to abandon the race leaving Damiano Caruso, a career Domestique, as the team leader for Bahrain Victorious. Dombrowski finished the stage; but after the stage he was evaluated by team medical staff and the following morning he posted a video to fans on social media where he stated, "Hi guys, unfortunately today I won’t be able to start here at the Giro. We did the concussion protocol last night, then followed up again this morning and just... I didn’t pass that, so with the doctors in the team we decided that it was not safe for me to start today." François Bidard was also involved in the crash, and he too would not survive to finish the race. De Marchi kept his lead, Louis Vervaeke moved into Dombrowski's spot and he was followed by Nelson Oliveira and Attila Valter who was leading the best young rider classification. During stage 6 several riders went clear during the first kilometres but Team was able to control this initial breakaway. Eventually, six riders went clear about into the stage, while the duo of Geoffrey Bouchard and Bauke Mollema soon gave chase and after a considerable pursuit managed to bridge the gap to the break. The eight-rider break built an advantage of around five and a half minutes. At this point, yet again, the rain began to fall heavily. Eventually Gino Mäder would make a move and attack this group and win the stage as well as take the lead in the mountains classification. The GC riders were very close behind at the finish with Egan Bernal, Remco Evenepoel and Dan Martin coming in at +0:12, and they were followed soon after by Giulio Ciccone, Damiano Caruso and Dani Martinez, who was proving to be the strongest Super-Domestique in the field riding in support of Bernal. Attila Valter survived not far behind these elite riders and moved into the pink jersey, a few seconds ahead of the now 2nd place Evenepoel and 3rd place Bernal. Martin, Ciccone and Yates all moved into the top 10.
Late in the stage a controversial incident occurred with around to go. As a team car tried to pull up alongside an official race car to collect rain jackets left behind from their riders, the car ran into the back of rider Pieter Serry, who had just been dropped from the group ahead. Serry managed to escape without injuries before going on to finish the stage. The occupants of the car were both team managers. The driver was expelled from the race and the passenger was given a fine. From the hotel Serry received a phone call and an apology over the incident, which he accepted saying it wasn't a big deal and could have been worse.
Stage 7 saw a trio of riders attack right at the start. Pellaud, Marengo and Mark Christian. Pellaud and Marengo would be involved in numerous breakaway attempts and therefore were highly placed in the Breakaway, Combative Rider and Intermediate Sprints classifications throughout the race. In the end it was a stage for the sprinters and inside the final kilometre as the leadout was in progress Fernando Gaviria made a surprise attack to steal the win but was caught just before the line by Cimolai, Merlier and Ewan, who won the stage and for the first time in his career, the points jersey in a grand tour.