The Giro d'Italia is a three-week cycling race held in Italy every May. It's one of the three Grand Tours of professional cycling, sitting alongside the Tour de France and the Vuelta a Espana as the sport's biggest stage races.

The word giro literally means tour or loop in Italian, so the name translates to "Tour of Italy". It runs 21 stages across roughly 23 days, with three rest days scattered through the schedule to let the riders recover.

The winner is decided on cumulative time: whoever completes the entire route in the lowest total time gets to wear the iconic pink jersey (Maglia Rosa) in Rome at the end, and takes home the Trofeo Senza Fine, one of the most distinctive trophies in world sport.

The race was founded in 1909 by Italian sports paper La Gazzetta dello Sport to sell more copies, which is the same reason the Tour de France exists. It's been running every year since, pausing only for the two World Wars. The 2026 edition will be the 109th.

Only one Australian has ever won it. Jai Hindley took the Maglia Rosa in 2022, becoming the first Aussie GC winner of the Giro and only the second Australian to win any Grand Tour after Cadel Evans at the 2011 Tour de France.

How the Giro d'Italia Works

Twenty-one stages over roughly 23 days, with three rest days built into the schedule. The race typically covers between 3,400km and 3,500km in total, with tens of thousands of metres of climbing across the three weeks.

Stages come in four flavours:

• Flat sprint stages, where the race usually ends in a bunch finish and the pure sprinters get their moment
• Hilly stages, which suit puncheurs and classics specialists who can handle short, sharp climbs
• Mountain stages, where the general classification is won and lost, often with a summit finish at the top of an iconic Italian climb
• Individual time trials, where each rider races alone against the clock

Every rider's finishing time on every stage gets added together, and whoever has the lowest cumulative time at the end of stage 21 wins the overall race.

That's the General Classification, or GC, and it's the only prize that really matters to the main contenders.

Time bonuses come into play on most stages.

For example, finishing first on a stage usually earns a 10-second bonus off your cumulative time, second place gets six seconds, and third gets four. Intermediate sprints scattered through the stage offer smaller bonuses.

As such, a few seconds of racing can unlock meaningful swings in the GC standings, which is why you'll see contenders sprinting for eighth place on what looks like a flat stage.

Twenty-three teams typically contest the race, with eight riders per team, so around 184 riders start the Giro each year. All 18 UCI WorldTeams get automatic invitations, and the remaining spots go to ProTeams selected by the organiser.

Team dynamics run deeper than they look on TV. Most squads arrive with one designated GC leader, plus seven teammates whose job is to protect that leader, chase down breakaways, fetch bottles, shield him from the wind, and empty themselves before the final climbs.

These support riders are called domestiques, and a strong domestique team is often the difference between winning and losing a Grand Tour.

Some teams bring a sprinter rather than a GC contender, since winning a stage on a flat day offers huge sponsor exposure even if the rider finishes two hours down in the GC

Others aim for the points or KOM jersey, or chase breakaway stage wins. As such, several mini-races run inside the one big race, so the action rarely stops even when the main contenders are saving their legs.

The Four Jerseys Explained

The Giro awards four leader's jerseys, each for a different competition running in parallel. You'll see them being handed out on a podium at the end of every stage.

Maglia Rosa (pink) is the big one as it is worn by the leader of the General Classification, the rider with the lowest cumulative time.

Introduced in 1931, it's the jersey every contender actually wants, and the one awarded to the overall winner in Rome alongside the Trofeo Senza Fine.

Maglia Ciclamino (cyclamen / purple-pink) is the points jersey, awarded to the rider with the most points earned at stage finishes and intermediate sprints. It typically rewards the most consistent fast finisher across the race, so it's usually a sprinter's prize.

Maglia Azzurra (blue). The King of the Mountains jersey, awarded to the best climber. Riders earn points for being the first over categorised climbs, with harder climbs offering more points. Cima Coppi, the race's highest point, carries the biggest haul.

Maglia Bianca (white). The best young rider jersey, awarded to the rider under 25 with the lowest cumulative time. It's effectively a GC-within-a-GC for the next generation, and plenty of future Grand Tour winners have worn it as a stepping stone.

If one rider leads multiple classifications, the priority order is pink, cyclamen, blue, white.

Giro vs Tour de France vs Vuelta: What Makes the Giro Different

All three Grand Tours run 21 stages over three weeks, crown their winner on cumulative time, and hand out the same set of classification prizes. The differences come from timing, terrain, and character.

Timing is the simplest gap: the Giro runs in May, the Tour de France sits in July, and the Vuelta a Espana closes the season in August and September

Top riders increasingly pick two Grand Tours per year rather than trying to race all three, since recovery between them is brutal.

On prestige, the Tour de France takes the global spotlight. It's the biggest cycling event on the calendar, has the largest budgets, and draws the biggest crowds.

The Giro sits a clear second in terms of global attention, but many cycling tragics will tell you it's the more interesting race.

Why? The Italian terrain.

The Giro regularly throws in steeper climbs than the Tour, with gradients on the Mortirolo and Zoncolan touching 20%.

Because the race runs in May rather than mid-summer, the weather in the Alps and Dolomites is genuinely dangerous, so snow-stage cancellations and frostbitten riders are part of the race's folklore.

There's also a cultural difference. The Giro is less corporate, more chaotic, and more willing to lean into dramatic route design. Race organiser RCS Sport tends to include at least one stage designed to blow the GC apart, where the Tour organisers tend to play it safer.

Iconic Climbs of the Giro

The Giro's mountain stages are its identity. The Italian Alps and Dolomites give the race a bank of legendary climbs, and a handful of them show up so regularly they've become part of the sport's vocabulary.

Cima Coppi is the honorary title given to the highest point of each year's Giro route. Named after Fausto Coppi, one of the greatest Italian cyclists of all time, the designation moves each year depending on which climbs are included.

The first rider over the Cima Coppi on the day picks up a bonus haul of KOM points and a place in Giro trivia forever.

The Stelvio Pass is the most famous. At 2,757m, it's one of the highest paved roads in the Alps, with 48 hairpin bends on its northern approach and a view that has to be seen to be believed.

It's been Cima Coppi on multiple occasions and remains the climb that defines the Giro's brutal beauty.

The Mortirolo is shorter but arguably meaner. It averages around 10.5% over 12km, with ramps of 18% that have broken some of the best climbers in history. Lance Armstrong once called it the hardest climb he'd ever ridden.

The Zoncolan earns a similar reputation. Its eastern side averages 11.9% over 10km, with sustained sections above 20%. Riders genuinely fear it, so when it appears on the route the GC action is usually explosive.

Blockhaus in the Abruzzo region and the Passo Giau in the Dolomites round out the rotation.

The Giau is the 2026 Cima Coppi, so this year's race will crown its highest-climbing rider on the slopes of one of the Dolomites' most photogenic peaks.

It tops out at 2,236m, with an approach from Selva di Cadore that averages 9.3% over 9.9km, including a brutal middle section of steady double-digit gradients.

Any one of these climbs can flip a Giro on its head in a single afternoon, which is what keeps long-time fans coming back. A two-minute lead on GC going into the mountains can vanish in a single mistimed attack or a badly chosen gear ratio on a 15% ramp.

This Year's Giro d'Italia

The 109th edition of the Giro runs from 8 May to 31 May 2026.

The Grande Partenza (the Grand Departure) happens in Nessebar on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast, with three stages racing across Bulgaria before the race transfers to Italian soil.

Starting a Grand Tour outside its home country has become increasingly common, and the Bulgarian opening is meant to expand the Giro's reach into new markets.

Once in Italy, the race works its way south through familiar Giro territory before ending with the traditional sprint procession around Rome, finishing outside the Colosseum on 31 May.

That Roman finish has been the closing stage since 2023, replacing the older Milan finale.

The 2026 route covers 3,459km and features 49,150m of climbing, so it's a genuine mountain race.

Summit finishes include Blockhaus, Cari, and a double serving of Piancavallo on the queen stage.

As mentioned, the Passo Giau carries the Cima Coppi honour this year. There's just one individual time trial, a 40km effort in Tuscany, so climbers will have a stronger hand than all-rounders.

Jonas Vingegaard headlines the contenders, making his Giro debut after targeting multiple Tour de France wins with Visma-Lease a Bike.

Joao Almeida leads UAE Team Emirates, and Richard Carapaz brings his 2019 Giro-winning pedigree for EF Education-EasyPost.

Jai Hindley returns with Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe, paired with Italian breakout climber Giulio Pellizzari, so the Australian has genuine support around him for another tilt at pink.

Australian interest extends beyond Hindley. Ben O'Connor leads Australian-registered WorldTour outfit Team Jayco AlUla, while Kaden Groves brings his sprint credentials to Alpecin-Premier Tech.

So Aussies are spread across the GC, the sprints, and the domestique ranks, which gives local viewers plenty of riders to follow across the three weeks.

How to Watch the Giro d'Italia in Australia

SBS holds the Australian broadcast rights. Every stage is live and free on SBS and SBS On Demand, so no paid subscription is required.

Coverage also expands each year to include both the men's Giro and the Giro d'Italia Women, which runs separately in July.

Most stages finish in the Aussie early morning, since European afternoons land overnight in Eastern Australia, so the nightly SBS On Demand replays are how most local fans actually watch. Stages land on-demand by the time most Australians are up for breakfast.