Egan Bernal currently leads the way in 2021’s race and if he stays in first position he’ll become just the second Colombian to win the event and only the fourth non-European to manage the feat too.
The Giro d’Italia is to cycling enthusiasts one of the main events in cycling, like the Triple Crown 2021 of horse racing. We can say the Triple Crown of cycling is the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta in Spain. So, it’s definitely worth it to look at which is the nation who conquered more victories in the competition.
Here we look at the nations who have had slightly more success as we run through the countries with the most Giro d’Italia wins.
Number 5. Switzerland and Russia, tied on 3
Yeah, we kick off our list of the countries with the most Giro d’Italia wins with a straight tie between Switzerland and Russia courtesy of them having three wins apiece. All six occasions has seen a different cyclist clinch the win too.
Swiss man Hugo Koblet was the first person to break home dominance in the race with his win, which included winning the mountains class, in 1950. Their most recent win came in 1995 as Tony Rominger added the Giro d’Italia win to three consecutive Vuelta a Espana wins.
Russia’s first taste of glory came just 12 months before Rominger’s win. Evgeni Berzin delivered the goods that year with their second success coming a year after thanks to Pavel Tonkov. Their latest win though was now over a decade ago when Denis Menchov won both the general and points classification.
Number 4. Spain, 4
Spain outperform both Russia and Switzerland in respect of total Giro d’Italia wins but, actually, they’re able to celebrate fewer Champions with just two cyclists having won the race. Miguel Indurain, who is one of Tour de France’s most decorated names, conquered the course in back to back years in 1992 and 1993.
15 years later Alberto Contador came along to clinch a first title before doing so again in 2015. Contador is also part of a select group that have won all of the major tours with a total haul of seven wins.
Number 3. France, 6
When you consider the Tour de France attracts such a big crowd you might actually have expected the nation to have won more than just half a dozen Giro d’Italia’s.
That’s especially true when you realise their first win came way back in 1960 as Jacques Anquetil fought off the competition. It was the first of two medals in Italy for Anquetil.
Come the eighties, there was new French cyclist – Bernard Hinault – who took the crown as their best ever; he won the tour three times in a six year period. Laurent Fignon, who lost his battle to cancer 11 years ago, was the last Frenchman to win the race – that was way back in 1989.
Number 2. Belgium, 7
The second placed nation in our list of the countries with the most Giro d’Italia wins is Belgium. They only narrowly edge out their French neighbours with three individual winners and seven trophies. Johan De Muynck and Michel Pollentier earned the country’s first wins (in 1977 and 78 respectively) but it is Eddy Merckx that is the man though.
Merckx is joint top of the all time Giro leaderboard; for many, he’s the greatest of all time. Why? Well, he’s lifted the Giro five times with his resilience and top defensive displays seeing all of those triumphs coming in a seven year period.
Number 1. Italy, 69
We come to our top spot with Italy sitting head and shoulders clear of the competition with 69 total wins and 41 winning cyclists that have tasted the sweet release of the trophy in their homeland. The number of wins is simply sensational but it’s perhaps not overly surprising given it’s their homeland route.
The first ever winner of the Giro d’Italia – from way back in 1909 – was Luigi Ganna. It was the only big win of Ganna’s career. Plenty of others have picked up the slack since though with Fausto Coppi and Alfredo Binda both winning the tour five times making them, with Merckx, the competitions most decorated cyclists.
The Italians do need to get back on track though; they absolutely bossed the roads in the early days and again around the turn of the millennium, but they’ve now kept the trophy on home soil just twice in a decade with 2016’s showing from Vincenzo Nibali their last glory.
The you have it, the countries with the most Giro d’Italia wins. Which one surprised you the most?
