They call it ‘the toughest race in the world’s most beautiful place’ and, while the French across the border may recoil from that suggestion on both counts, the 102-year-old Giro d’Italia has certainly earned its place as one of cycling’s ‘majors’.
This month, for the 94th time, leg power will take on the length and breadth of ‘the boot’ with the special add-on of being a celebration of the unification of Italy. The year 2011 marks the 150th anniversary of the foundation of a single parliament in a peninsula previously made of separate states and ‘Il Giro’ is the official cultural event for the occasion.
The race used to be viewed as a purely Italian exercise but now its profile has mushroomed into a truly international event. On May 7 in Turin 23 teams from nine countries, boasting a combined total of 207 riders, will head off at the start of a 21-stage journey lasting 3,500 kilometres.
Cyclists from the traditional powers of western Europe, the US and Australia will mix with those hailing from the likes of Ukraine, New Zealand, Brazil, Japan, Netherlands Antilles and South Africa. Indeed, the once insular Giro has gone global.
“The Giro is nothing like as big as the Tour de France but recent years have seen it become more and more exciting,” says Daniel Benson from the Giro’s media partner Future. “Lance Armstrong rode the race in 2009 and it is gaining a bigger audience year-by-year.
“The 2011 race includes most of the biggest names in the sport, and Britain’s Team Sky is sending a very strong line-up. Approximately 45 per cent of our audience is US-based, there’s great interest in the biggest cycling races over there and the Giro is no exception.”
“I am very satisfied by the growth over the past five years which has surpassed our objectives” race director Angelo Zomegnan told SportBusiness International last year. “The [revenue] gap between the Tour de France and the Giro, for example, is less than it was four years ago. Our revenues are about 30-40 per cent of the Tour de France, and we are working to reduce that gap further."
Commercial indicators of media sales verify Zomegnan’s assertion: 160 countries took the event in 2010, more than double the figure from five years ago, and in 2010 the Giro’s annual TV rights value, including domestic and international markets, was €17 million.
“Last year, we signed with Universal in the USA and for the first time this year with broadcasters in South America and Africa - so we are in the five continents,” adds Zomegnan.
The Giro was voted stage race of the year in a 2010 reader poll on specialist website Cyclingnews, establishing itself as the race for the aficionado. Its mazy route this time round snakes through all bar three of the Italian regions, including the island of Sicily for a finish on the slopes of the Mount Etna volcano, and stages in the Dolomites and the Alps. It all comes to a crunch on the penultimate day with a brutal climb of the infamous Colle delle Finestre, en route to the ski resort of Sestriere, before ending with an individual time trial in Milan on May 29.
The whole of Italy wants a slice of the action; Zomegnan receives more than 80 bids from towns and cities up and down the country each year hoping to host a stage of the race. And it’s not just constrained to Italy: in 2010 the Giro started with a time trial in Amsterdam and 2012 will also see the race start in western Denmark, with a prologue in Herning followed the day after with a second stage in the flat hinterland with a start and finish in the Danish city.
Zomegnan has to balance the need to include mountain, time trial and sprint stages with geography within a 23-day timeframe. There is also the imperative to plan the key moments for the weekends, as the Giro takes place outside of the main holiday period.
For the full feature, please see the latest issue of SportBusiness International out May 1.
