.jpg)
The 1909 Giro d'Italia was the 1st edition of the Giro d'Italia, organized and sponsored by the Italian major sport newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport. The event began in Milan on 13 May with a 397 km first stage to Bologna, finishing back in Milan on 30 May after a final stage of 206 km and a total distance covered of 2,447.9 km. The race was won by the Italian rider Luigi Ganna of the Atala team, with fellow Italians Carlo Galetti and Giovanni Rossignoli coming in second and third respectively.
Conceived by La Gazzetta to boost its circulation at the expense of its rival Corriere della Sera, the 1909 Giro was the first stage road race. Its eight stages, although relatively few compared to modern Grand Tours, were each much longer than those raced today. The event began with a long primarily flat stage that was won by Dario Beni. He lost the lead after the next stage to the eventual winner Luigi Ganna, who in turn lost it to Carlo Galetti after the mountainous third stage. Ganna regained the lead after the fourth stage and successfully defended it all the way to the finish in Milan, winning three stages en route. Atala won the team classification.
The idea of holding a bicycle race around Italy was first suggested in a telegram sent by Tullo Margagni, editor of La Gazzetta dello Sport, to the paper's owner Emilio Costamagna and cycling editor Armando Cougnet. La Gazzetta's rival, Corriere della Sera was planning to hold a bicycle race of its own, flushed with the success of its automobile race. Morgagni decided to try and hold the race before Corriere della Sera could hold theirs, and following La Gazzetta's success in creating the Giro di Lombardia and Milan–San Remo, Costamagna decided to back the idea.
The inaugural Giro d'Italia bicycle race was announced on 7 August 1908 in the first page of that day's edition of La Gazzetta, to be held in May 1909. The idea of the race was influenced by the success of the French magazine L'Auto's organization of the Tour de France.
Since the newspaper lacked the necessary 25,000 lire to sponsor the race, the organizers consulted Primo Bongrani, a sympathetic accountant at the bank Cassa di Risparmio. He proceeded to solicit donations from all over Italy, and succeeded in raising sufficient money to cover the operating costs. The prize money came from a casino in San Remo after Francesco Sghirla, a former Gazzetta employee, encouraged them to contribute to the race. Even Corriere, La Gazzetta's rival, donated 3,000 lire.
Both teams and individual riders were allowed to enter the race, which was run in eight stages with two to three rest days between each stage. Compared to modern races the stages were extraordinarily long, with an average distance of more than 300 km, compared to the 165 km average stage length in the 2012 Giro d'Italia.
A total of 166 riders signed up to participate in the event. Twenty of the riders who entered were non-Italians: fifteen were French, two were German, one was Argentinian, one was Belgian, and one was from Trieste, which at the time was not a part of Italy. Only 127 riders started the first stage of the race, all but five of Italian descent, of whom only 49 reached the finish in Milan on 30 May. Riders were allowed to enter the race as independents or as a member of a team.
The inaugural Giro d'Italia's first stage, 397 km from Milan to Bologna, began on 13 May 1909 at 2:53 am in front of a large crowd.
The first Giro d'Italia was a great success, prompting organizers to arrange a second one for 1910. The race substantially increased La Gazzetta's circulation, and the starts and finishes were attended by large audiences. Ganna's prize money helped him start his own bike factory in 1912. The newspaper ran the event through 1988, when the RCS Organizzazzioni Sportivi company was created to run it.
More information: Giro d'Italia
It makes you hard and gives you ambition,
but you can never say you've arrived.
Eddy Merckx
No comments:
Post a Comment