The 2010 Giro d'Italia was the 93rd edition of the Giro d'Italia, one of cycling's Grand Tours. The race started off in Amsterdam on 8 May and stayed in the Netherlands for three stages, before leaving the country. The route included climbs such as Monte Zoncolan, Plan de Corones, the Passo del Mortirolo and the Passo di Gavia before ending in Verona with an individual time trial.
Principal favorites for overall success in the Giro included Ivan Basso of the team, Cadel Evans for , and 's Carlos Sastre. After three weeks of racing, it was Basso who claimed his second Giro d'Italia title, after also winning in 2006. David Arroyo from and Basso's teammate Vincenzo Nibali rounded out the podium. Australian riders won all the lesser jersey awards, with Evans taking the points classification, 's Matthew Lloyd the winner of the mountains classification, and Richie Porte of the Giro's best young rider.
The road race stages in the Netherlands were both marred by repeated crashes, which led to some unexpected big time gaps before the transfer to Italy. The overall standings were very turbulent in the first week, with four different riders holding the race leader's pink jersey. The 11th stage greatly re-shaped the overall standings, when several riders, including Sastre, gained almost 13 minutes against the remainder of the field. Porte took the pink jersey after this stage. Two days later, Arroyo took the jersey, and kept it for five days. He eventually lost it to Basso on the first of two very difficult mountain stages to close out the Giro. Success was fairly widespread among the Giro's 22 teams, as 17 of them came away with either a stage win, classification win, or stint in the pink jersey.
Teams
The 22 teams in the race were announced on 22 March. Sixteen teams were guaranteed a place in the race by virtue of a September 2008 agreement between the UCI and the organizers of the season's three Grand Tours. Those guaranteed a place are those who were members of the UCI ProTour at the time of the agreement. Two from this group, and , declined to participate in the race, instead focusing on the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España. Two new teams joined the ProTour for 2010. One, , participated in the race, but the other, , did not wish to participate, since they planned to send their best riders to the partially concurrent Tour of California. Seven UCI Professional Continental teams, two of which ( and ) were part of the September 2008 agreement as they were members of the ProTour at that time, joined the 15 ProTour teams to round out the teams list. Each team entered a squad of nine riders, giving the event a 198-rider peloton at its outset.
The race's 22 teams were:
Non-invitation of Dutch teams The Giro, like the 2009 Vuelta a España before it and the forthcoming Tour de France, began in the Netherlands. The two Dutch Professional Continental teams, and , had both ridden Grand Tours in 2009. Throughout the season, the two teams tried to prove their combativeness in the hopes of securing Grand Tour invites, trying especially to outdo one another. Since the openings to the Giro and the Tour were partly financed by Dutch tax money, Vacansoleil's team manager called for political help to get invites for his team, but neither Dutch team made it into either the Giro or the Tour. Consequently, neither made the Vuelta a España teams selection, either. The teams' disappointment at their non-invitation led to communications with UCI President Pat McQuaid, which may result in reforms to how teams are selected for the Grand Tours.
Pre-race favorites
The Giro was often described as being wide open in terms of who had the best chance to win it. This is because many notable riders, including the past three champions, did not enter. 2007 Giro d'Italia champion Danilo Di Luca, who originally finished second in the 2009 Giro d'Italia, was suspended by his national federation in February for a doping incident in the 2009 Giro. 2008 Giro d'Italia champion Alberto Contador skipped the Giro to better focus on the Tour de France, as he also had in the previous season. After first indicating that he might defend his championship, 2009 champion Denis Menchov also announced that he would not ride the Giro, instead focusing on the Tour de France, in order to complete the career sweep of the Grand Tours. Lance Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer, leaders of the squad in the 2009 Giro, announced in October 2009 that they would ride the partially concurrent Tour of California instead of the Giro, which is why was not selected for the Giro.
Just five days before the race began, the UCI announced several riders were under suspicion of doping by virtue of irregular values in their biological passports. Among them was Franco Pellizotti, who had been set to be one of the leaders for the team and had been described as a pre-race favorite. While team firmly stood behind Pellizotti in the case and expressed anger that the UCI unveiled their findings so close to the start of the Giro, they obligingly pulled him from their squad. He was replaced by Vincenzo Nibali, who had been planning to ride the Tour of California as a squad leader. While not an overall favorite, Alessandro Ballan intended to participate in the race, stating in October that it was a certainty he would start, after missing out on the Giro in 2009 when he was world champion. This was an indication well in advance that the was in line for an invite to the race. Ballan was later suspended by his team as a result of an internal doping investigation, meaning he had to miss the Giro. He was later cleared of any wrongdoing.
Most pre-race analyses identified Ivan Basso, Cadel Evans, and Carlos Sastre as the major favorites to win the overall classification, with Evans perhaps the consensus pick. Basso and Sastre had both ridden the Giro in 2009 and come away finishing in the top five. Sastre also won two difficult mountain stages in the race's final week, and was noted as a rider who gets stronger as a race goes along, making the Giro's very climbing-intensive third week possibly sit in his favor. Evans had finished on a Grand Tour podium in each of the past three seasons, including in the most recent three-week event, the 2009 Vuelta a España. He also entered the race as the reigning world cycling champion and had had a successful 2010 season to date, with a win in La Flèche Wallonne and a podium finish in the Tirreno–Adriatico. Neither Basso nor Sastre had raced much in the 2010 season prior to the Giro. Other riders named as contenders included Bradley Wiggins, former Giro winners Damiano Cunego and Stefano Garzelli, Alexander Vinokourov, Marzio Bruseghin, Christian Vande Velde, Domenico Pozzovivo, David Moncoutié, and Michele Scarponi. Race director Angelo Zomegnan also named Basso, Evans, and Sastre as his three favorites, and included Wiggins and Linus Gerdemann as possible darkhorses.
Mark Cavendish and Daniele Bennati, stage winners in the past two editions of the Giro, were absent from this race, but several top sprinters took the start in Amsterdam. These included Tyler Farrar, André Greipel, and Alessandro Petacchi, all of whom had themselves won Grand Tour stages in 2009 and figured to be top favorites for the Giro's flat stages. Former Tour de France points classification winner Óscar Freire intended to make his Giro debut in this race, but he pulled out due to sinusitis shortly before the race started. Other sprinters in the Giro peloton included Robbie McEwen, Freire's teammate Graeme Brown, Baden Cooke, Leonardo Duque, Sebastian Haedo, Wouter Weylandt, and Greg Henderson.
Route and stages
The Giro's 21 stages were divided into the following classifications by race organizers Gazzetta dello Sport: four time trials (three individual and one team), seven flat stages, five mixed stages, and six mountain stages. The race began in the Netherlands, the ninth time in the Giro's history that the race began outside Italy, and the first since 2006's start in Belgium. A short individual time trial and two flat stages were held there. Starting the race away from Italy meant that an early rest day, coming just three days into the 23-day race, was necessary to transfer to Italy. The first stage upon entering Italy was a team time trial, the fifth consecutive year that discipline had featured in the Giro. Stage 7 visited Tuscany and was raced partly on unpaved roads used yearly in the Italian semi-classic Montepaschi Strade Bianche. The course honored Italian cycling legends Gino Bartali, Fausto Coppi, and Costante Girardengo by passing through their hometowns in the first road race stages in Italy.
Five stages ended with climbs, with most coming in the race's last week. The first was stage 8 to Monte Terminillo, a long climb gaining of vertical elevation for an average gradient of 7.3 percent, one of the most difficult climbs in the Apennine Mountains in the region of Abruzzo. The next was Monte Zoncolan in the Carnic Alps, which at in length was shorter than some of the other climbs in the race, but with of vertical gain in that time, its 20 percent maximum gradient made it one of the most difficult. The Stage 16 individual time trial went to Plan de Corones, on a course identical to the one used in the 2008 Giro d'Italia. In , this stage gained over and featured a section with 24 percent gradients in the final kilometer. The Giro's last two road race stages were especially climbing-intensive, including the Passo del Mortirolo, rising in for an average gradient of 10 percent, and the Passo di Gavia, known for being climbed during the 1988 Giro d'Italia in the middle of a driving blizzard. The Gavia was also the Cima Coppi, the race's highest point, and Stage 20, in which it featured, was considered the queen stage. Other climbs during the race included the Passo del Bratello, Monte Grappa, the Passo delle Palade, the Passo di Santa Cristina, the Forcola di Livigno, and the last climb of the race, the Passo del Tonale. Most of these climbs also featured difficult descents.
The route was noted to appeal to many types of riders, be they climbers, sprinters, or time trialists. The race had seven flat stages which figured into end in mass sprints, and the hilly mixed stages were inviting for breakaways. Sastre, one of the first riders to announce he would ride the Giro, commented that the route was much harder than that of the 2009 Giro, and would demand a very strong climber to be its champion. Zomegnan concurred that the route favored climbers, noting that the distance spent time trialing was not great and that it would take errors from climbing specialists to allow a rider better suited for time trialing to be Giro champion.
+Stage characteristics and winnersStageDateCourseDistanceTypeWinner18 MayAmsterdam (Netherlands) Individual time trial29 MayAmsterdam to Utrecht (Netherlands) Flat stage310 MayAmsterdam to Middelburg (Netherlands) Flat stage11 May Rest day (Savigliano)412 MaySavigliano to Cuneo Team time trial513 MayNovara to Novi Ligure Flat stage614 MayFidenza to Marina di Carrara Mixed stage715 MayCarrara to Montalcino Mixed stage816 MayChianciano to Monte Terminillo Mountain stage917 MayFrosinone to Cava de' Tirreni Flat stage1018 MayAvellino to Bitonto Flat stage1119 MayLucera to L'Aquila Mixed stage1220 MayCittà Sant'Angelo to Porto Recanati Flat stage1321 MayPorto Recanati to Cesenatico Mixed stage1422 MayFerrara to Asolo (Monte Grappa) Mountain stage1523 MayMestre to Zoncolan Mountain stage24 May Rest day (Mareo)1625 MayMareo to Plan de Corones Individual time trial1726 MayBruneck to Peio Terme Mixed stage1827 MayLevico Terme to Brescia Flat stage1928 MayBrescia to Aprica Mountain stage2029 MayBormio to Passo del Tonale Mountain stage2130 MayVerona Individual time trial TOTAL
Race overview