The 2015 Giro d'Italia () was a three-week Grand Tour cycling stage race that took place in May 2015. It was the 98th running of the Giro d'Italia and took place principally in Italy, although some stages visited France and Switzerland. The race included 21 stages, beginning in San Lorenzo al Mare on 9 May and concluding in Milan on 31 May. It was the fifteenth race of the 2015 UCI World Tour. The Giro was won by Alberto Contador (), with Fabio Aru () second and Aru's teammate Mikel Landa third.
Contador first took the lead after stage 5, the race's first uphill finish. His defence of the pink jersey (given to the leader in the General classification in the Giro d'Italia) was put in doubt when he injured his left shoulder in a crash in the sixth stage. He held his lead through several stages but was caught up in another crash in stage 13, which caused him to lose the lead. He took the lead back the following day in the Individual time trial, where he gained a lead of several minutes over all his rivals. Despite aggressive riding from Aru and Landa in the final week, Contador was able to defend his lead to the finish of the race. This was his third Giro d'Italia title, after the 2008 race.
As well as finishing second overall, Aru won the white jersey as the best young rider in the week. Giacomo Nizzolo () won the points competition and Giovanni Visconti (Movistar) won the mountains classification. Astana finished first in both the team ranking by time and the team ranking by points. Contador, Visconti and Nizzolo all won their classifications without winning any stage victories.
Teams
As the Giro d'Italia was a UCI World Tour event, all seventeen UCI WorldTeams were automatically invited and obliged to send a squad. Five UCI Professional Continental teams were given wildcard places in the race by RCS Sport, the race organisers. Four of these were Italian-based teams: , , and . Southeast's entry in the race was earned by their victory in the 2014 Coppa Italia, when they competed as ; they were invited despite three recent doping cases in the team. The final wildcard place was awarded to , a Polish-based team. CCC-Sprandi-Polkowice's invitation immediately received attention because the team's roster included two prominent riders who has previously served bans for doping: Stefan Schumacher and Davide Rebellin. The day after the announcement, Cycling Weekly reported that the team might omit the riders from its squad for the race.
Several prominent teams applied for wildcard places but were unsuccessful. These were , , and .
The team presentation took place in San Remo on the evening before the first stage. As each team sent nine riders to the race, the startlist contained 198 riders. George Bennett () was withdrawn from the startlist on the night before the race, however, as a blood test had revealed low cortisol levels. As his team was part of the Movement for Credible Cycling (MPCC), he was not allowed to start the Giro. therefore began the race with eight riders and there were 197 riders in the peloton at the beginning of the race. This included riders from 36 different countries, with the largest numbers coming from Italy (59), France (15), Belgium (12) and the Netherlands (12). The average age of riders in the Giro was 28.95; they ranged from the 21-year-old Rick Zabel () to the 41-year-old Alessandro Petacchi (Southeast).
Pre-race favourites
The winner of the 2014 Giro d'Italia, Nairo Quintana (), chose not to defend his title in order to focus on the Tour de France. The principal favourite for the race was Alberto Contador (), especially as Chris Froome () and Vincenzo Nibali (), two of the most successful active Grand Tour riders, also chose to focus on the Tour and to skip the Giro. Contador, who had won the 2014 Vuelta a España, was attempting to win both the Giro and the Tour in the same season. No rider had achieved this double since Marco Pantani in 1998; Contador described his ambition to do "something that people will remember forever". Contador's last attempt to win both the Giro and the Tour – in the 2011 season – ended in failure. Although he finished first in the Giro, he only managed fifth place in the Tour; both results were subsequently removed because of a ban due to a doping case from 2010.
The rider considered most likely to challenge Contador for the general classification was Richie Porte (Sky). Porte had already achieved nine race victories in 2015, including the overall victories in Paris–Nice, the Volta a Catalunya and the Giro del Trentino. Porte was expected to be particularly strong in the individual time trial, as well as in the mountains. Porte had not shown consistent form in a Grand Tour in recent years, however, and there were doubts about his ability to maintain his form over a three-week race.
Rigoberto Urán () – who had finished second in 2013 and 2014 – was also among the favourites, with the long individual time trial expected to suit him. Fabio Aru (Astana) – who had finished third in 2014 – was also expected to perform well; VeloNews described him as "perhaps the best pure climber in the race". Other riders expected to challenge for the higher places included Ilnur Zakarin (), who had just won the Tour de Romandie, Domenico Pozzovivo (), Jurgen Van den Broeck (), Damiano Caruso (BMC) and Ryder Hesjedal (), the winner of the 2012 Giro d'Italia. Four former winners of the Giro started the 2015 edition: Contador, Hesjedal, Ivan Basso (Tinkoff–Saxo) and Damiano Cunego ().
Other prominent riders to start the race included a large number of prominent sprinters, including André Greipel (Lotto–Soudal) and Michael Matthews (). Greipel was expected to perform well in the few flat stages. Matthews had the ability to win hillier stages; his team's strength in the team time trial was expected to put him into the pink jersey as leader of the general classification during the first week; he had also worn the jersey in the first week of the 2014 Giro. Tom Boonen (), a former world champion, participated in the Giro for the first time in his career.
Route and stages
The first announcement of the route for the 2015 Giro came in July 2014, when RCS Sport announced that it would begin with a team time trial from San Lorenzo al Mare along the coast to San Remo. The route would use the cycle path and would start at the foot of the Cipressa climb made famous by its inclusion in the Milan–San Remo classic. The route used neither the climb of the Cipressa nor that of the Poggio di San Remo; it kept to the coastline and was entirely flat. The stage would end on the Lungomare Italo Calvino in San Remo. The following two stages were announced at the same time. The second stage – the first mass-start stage of the race – would suit the sprinters, while the third stage would take the riders to La Spezia, where the small climb of the Biassa would come towards the end of the stage. A further route announcement was made in mid-September. Mauro Vegni, the race director, announced that the Giro would return to the climb of the Madonna di Campiglio for the first time since 1999. In the 1999 Giro, Marco Pantani won the stage that finished on the climb and was in the race lead; he failed a test for EPO use, however, and was expelled from the race. The full route announcement was made in Milan on 6 October at an event attended by many riders expected to participate in the Giro.
An additional stage in Liguria was included in the route. This was the new third stage, with the stage to La Spezia now stage 4. The additional stage was hilly but had a long flat section towards the finish. The first summit finish of the race came on the second-category climb of the Abetone at the end of stage 5. There was then one flat stage, which was followed by the hilly stage 7, which was the longest stage in any Giro d'Italia since 2000 at . These took the riders south along the Tyrrhenian coast and into Campania and then inland towards the southern Apennines. The race then entered the mountains for stages 8 and 9. Stage 8 had a summit finish on the Campitello Matese; stage 9 included mountains and hills throughout. This was followed by the race's first rest day.
The rest day included a transfer to Civitanova Marche on the Adriatic coast. The subsequent stages took the riders along the coast and then into the Dolomites. Immediately after the rest day, there were four relatively flat stages, although two of them included hills towards the end. These were followed by the race's only individual time trial. This was in length and was one of the longest time trials in the Giro in recent years. It began with of flat roads, which were followed by rolling roads towards the finish line in Valdobbiadene. After the time trial came the stage to Madonna di Campiglio, which included several other difficult climbs. This was followed by the second rest day.
The final week of the race began with a stage that crossed the very difficult Passo di Mortirolo on the way to a finish on a third-category climb in Aprica. Cycling Weekly described this as "this year's blockbuster stage". This was followed by one of the flattest stages of the race, which took the Giro out of Italy for the first time in 2015 as it crossed into Switzerland for a finish in Lugano. There were then three consecutive days with high mountains. The eighteenth stage of the race started in Melide, Switzerland in Switzerland and took the riders across the difficult Monte Ologno before a difficult descent to the finish. There were then two consecutive summit finishes on the Cervinia and on Sestriere. The final stage was a largely ceremonial flat stage towards a finish in Milan.
The highest climb of the 2015 Giro – known as the Cima Coppi – was the Colle delle Finestre on the penultimate stage. This was above sea level. In general, the climbs were lower than in previous years, following controversy in the 2014 Giro over the crossing of the Stelvio Pass. The race organisers also tried to make the transfers between stages shorter.
+List of stagesStageDateCourseDistanceTypeWinner19 May San Lorenzo al Mare to Sanremo Team time trial 210 May Albenga to Genoa Flat stage 311 May Rapallo to Sestri Levante Medium-mountain stage412 May Chiavari to La Spezia Medium-mountain stage 513 May La Spezia to Abetone Medium-mountain stage 614 May Montecatini Terme to Castiglione della Pescaia Flat stage 715 May Grosseto to Fiuggi Flat stage 816 May Fiuggi to Campitello Matese Mountain stage 917 May Benevento to San Giorgio del Sannio Medium-mountain stage 18 May Rest day (Civitanova Marche)1019 May Civitanova Marche to Forlì Flat stage 1120 May Forlì to Imola (Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari) Medium-mountain stage 1221 May Imola to Vicenza (Monte Berico) Medium-mountain stage 1322 May Montecchio Maggiore to Jesolo Flat stage 1423 May Treviso to Valdobbiadene Individual time trial 1524 May Marostica to Madonna di Campiglio Mountain stage 25 May Rest day (Madonna di Campiglio)1626 May Pinzolo to Aprica Mountain stage 1727 May Tirano to Lugano (Switzerland) Flat stage 1828 May Melide (Switzerland) to Verbania Medium-mountain stage 1929 May Gravellona Toce to Cervinia Mountain stage 2030 May Saint-Vincent to Sestriere Mountain stage 2131 May Turin to Milan Flat stage
Race overview