Key race facts

168 – Number of finishers, out of 207 starters.

84:53:28 – Total race time for overall winner Vincenzo Nibali.

5 – Nationalities represented in the top ten on GC (Italy four, Colombia and Poland two each, Australia and Spain one each).

2 – Teams which placed more than rider in the top ten: Lampre-Merida (Damiano Cunego and Przemyslaw Niemiec) and Ag2r La Mondiale (Carlos Betancur and Domenico Pozzovivo).

5 – Only five riders wore the leader’s pink jersey – the maglia rosa – during the race: Mark Cavendish, Salvatore Puccio, Luca Paolini, Benat Intxausti and Vincenzo Nibali.

2 – Number of days on which the race was led by a non-Italian rider: one each by Cavendish and Intxausti.

4 – Four riders led the red jersey (maglia rossa) points competition during the race: winner Mark Cavendish (on four separate occasions), Luca Paolini, Cadel Evans and Vincenzo Nibali.

5 – Cavendish became only the fifth rider ever to win the points classification at all three grand tours.

3 – Number of riders who led the blue jersey (maglia azzurra) King of the Mountains competition: Giovanni Visconti, Willem Wauters and winner Stefano Pirazzi.

3 – Rafal Majka led the young riders’ classification on three separate occasions, only to lose it to winner Carlos Betancur on stage 20.

1 – In coming second overall, Rigoberto Uran became the first Colombian rider ever to finish on the podium at the Giro.

6 – Only six riders finished within ten minutes of Nibali’s winning time. Just 30 finished less than an hour in arrears.

4:28:36 – Davide Appollonio (Ag2r) was the last classified finisher, nearly 4½ hours slower than Nibali.

The champion

28 – Age of Vincenzo Nibali.

2 – This was Nibali’s second grand tour victory, after the 2010 Vuelta a Espana.

3 – Nibali has now occupied all three Giro podium positions, having been third in 2010 and second (retrospectively after Alberto Contador’s ban) in 2011.

7 – He is the seventh different winner of the Giro in the last seven editions.

4:43 – Nibali’s winning margin over runner-up Rigoberto Uran.

2 – Stages won by Nibali during the race (the stage 18 individual time trial and stage 20).

14 – Days in the maglia rosa for Nibali (including the cancelled stage 19), consecutively from stage eight to the end of the race.

The stage winners

13 – Number of individual stage winners (excluding the team time trial).

3 – Number of riders with multiple stage victories: Mark Cavendish (five), Giovanni Visconti and Vincenzo Nibali (two each).

8 – Different nationalities who won stages: Italy led the way with seven, followed by Britain (six), Germany, Australia, Russia, Colombia, Lithuania and Spain (one each).

10 – Only ten of the 23 teams won stages during the race, with Omega Pharma-Quick Step leading the way with five, all courtesy of Cavendish. Movistar had four victories, the only other team with more than two.

36 – Age of Luca Paolini, who finally made his Giro debut and promptly won stage three.

41 – Cavendish‘s five stage victories moved him up to 41 grand tour wins (15 at the Giro), the sixth most all-time.

100 – Cavendish’s third victory, on stage 12, was his 100th as a professional.

11 – Of the 13 riders who won individual stages, 11 were enjoying their first Giro victories: Luca Paolini, Enrico Battaglin, John Degenkolb, Adam Hansen, Alex Dowsett, Maxim Belkov, Rigoberto Uran, Ramunas Navardauskas, Mauro Santambrogio, Giovanni Visconti and Benat Intxausti. (Only Cavendish and Nibali were also previous Giro stage winners.)

And a few other random stats …

5 – Adam Hansen (Lotto-Belisol) has started the last five grand tours, dating back to the 2011 Vuelta – and finished them all.

39 – Age of Stefano Garzelli (Vini Fantini-Selle Italia), the oldest rider in the race.

22 – Age of Luke Durbridge (Orica-GreenEDGE), the youngest rider in the race. 

13 – Movistar’s Giovanni Visconti was born on January 13th, the same date as Marco Pantani. Visconti won stage 15, which finished by the Pantani memorial on the Col du Galibier.

3 – Alex Dowsett’s victory over Bradley Wiggins in the stage eight time trial was the third time in ten months a grand tour ITT had seen a British one-two. (Wiggins beat Chris Froome in both ITTs at the Tour de France.) It had never previously happened before.

24 – Stage 19 was the first time in 24 years that a Giro stage has had to be cancelled because of bad weather.

1 – Number of riders thrown out of the race for receiving tows from team cars: Mattia Gavazzi (Androni Giocattoli-Venezuela).

Some information courtesy of infostradalive.com. Header photograph © Davide Calabresi.

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