2013 Giro d'Italia: The Numbers of the 96th Edition

A truly epic edition of the Giro d’Italia has just drawn to a close. This was the 96th running of the race, and one of the most successful in history.

During the 21 days of racing, the Giro crossed 17 regions, more than 500 municipalities, and covered 3341.8 km. The race was broadcast daily in 174 countries, with millions of people on the streets and in front of a passionate audience throughout the race.

It was a journey that has touched the beautiful scenery, culture and history throughout Italy, from Naples to Brescia via Ischia, Amalfi Coast and Cilento, Matera with its famous Sassi, Florence – the home of the next World Cup, Busseto for the Bicentenary of Giuseppe Verdi and then into France on the legendary Col du Galibier, Vicenza with the Palladio and the Dolomites with the epic stage of Tre Cime di Lavaredo, just to name a few.

Here is a summary of the numbers of the Giro, 2013:

• Athletes: 207 riders from 23 teams (168 started the final stage) and of 30 different nationalities. The first Chinese and the first Greek athletes to participate in the Giro did so this year, and 5 different riders wore the pink jersey.

• Sponsors: 29 partners have contributed to the success of the Giro, tying their brand with this legendary edition of the Corsa Rosa. Most of all, Balocco who sponsor the Maglia Rosa, and the other sponsors of the main classifications: Blue - Banca Mediolanum, Red - Italo, White - F.lli Orsero and Estathé – the winner of the stage.

• The media: the press office gave accreditation to 1,595 media professionals, including 1,132 journalists and 463 photographers representing 1,076 international, national and local media. The focus was to get into the breaking news on the main news cycle at national and international level.

• Television: For the first time the Giro d’Italia was produced in HD, with a great effort by Rai who played the role of Host Broadcaster and allowed the images of the Corsa Rosa to be shown in 174 countries, on five continents:

• Europe - Eurosport visible in 70 countries across Europe and Asia Pacific, in Belgium the Flemish VRT channel, NOS in the Netherlands, SRG SSR in Switzerland, TV2 in Denmark, Spain from the circuit Forte (EITB Euskal Telebista in the Basque Country, TV3 in Catalonia, Galicia TVG Televisión de Galicia, Asturias TPA), Sky Sports in the UK, Sweden and Germany with SVT Sport with A (ARD & ZDF). The channel beIN Sports has broadcast the Giro exclusively in France and in the United States of America.

• Africa - the coverage was broadcast by Supersport, while in the Middle East by Al Jazeera.

• America - English-speaking Canada was covered by Sportsnet, while French-speaking Canada by Réseau des Sports (RDS). In Mexico, Panama, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and El Salvador, the Giro was broadcast by Televisa Deportes Network (TDN). In South America, Sur ESPN and ESPN Brasil sent both the direct and the highlights.

• Asia - the Giro was broadcast on Eurosport Asia Pacific Asia and Al Jazeera in the Middle East. For the first time it was shown in China through the national sports channel CCTV5. J Sports (Japan), Six Sony TV (India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Maldives, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan) and True Visions (Thailand) broadcast the event. In Kazakhstan, Khabar TV broadcast the Giro d’Italia.

• Oceania - Australia's SBS channel has confirmed the great viewing figures of the Corsa Rosa in their broadcasts of the race.

All the major Italian broadcasters and many foreign ones have followed the event with their crews (Eurosport, TV2 Denmark, SRG SSR, VRT, beIN Sport, SBS, Sky Sports UK, CCTV and BBC Radio 5).

The television audience in Italy on RAI and Eurosport, have increased, testament to the quality of the product, the high level of the participants and the beauty of the route.

The stage of the Col du Galibier saw the audience peak, recorded at 17:42 with 3.9 million viewers on Rai 3 and over 4 million when adding those of RAI Sport 1. As for the rest of the world, the audience figures will be known shortly.

The Fans on Social Media

Facebook:
• 350,000 fans on the official page.
• Each post has been viewed by an average of 180,000 people.
• The most popular post: 450,000 views, 12,000 "likes" and more than 5,000 shares.

Twitter:
• More than 170,000 followers on the official profile.

Google+:
• 100,000 followers on the official page.
• 4 exclusive Hangouts with the winners of the stage and the pink jersey.

YouTube:
• Nearly 2 million views on the official channel.
• 15,000 registered subscribers on the official channel.

• The App and the Web

APP
• Total new downloads, 2013: 122,878 vs. 116,216 in 2012.
• Page views average per day: 504,000 (+48% vs 2012) and average daily unique users per day: 38,000 (+34% vs 2012).
• App of the Giro d’Italia, available for iOS, Android and Windows8 (Phone and Tablet).
• 180,000 App installed and updated.

WEB
• The most interesting is the increase in number of pages viewed daily on the official website of the Giro (http://www.gazzetta.it/Giroditalia/2013; +50% compared to 2012 and amounted to 1,437,422).

See you in Ireland in 2014 where, on Saturday 10 May, the Giro d’Italia starts again.



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New Sponsor for Maglia Rosa: Balocco

For 2013 and 2014 the Giro d'Italia will have a new sponsor for the Maglia Rosa: Balocco, founded in Fossano (Cuneo) in 1927. Balocco replaces Estathe'.

"The Giro is without a doubt one of the most iconic events in our country, and thanks to its international coverage, shows wonderful images of our Italy around the world," said Alberto Balocco. "Our sponsorship of the maglia rosa is therefore a fantastic way of reaffirming our Italian pride and increasing our global profile.There's always a risk in anything you do but were convinced that we've made the right choice. I've seen that the testing is severe and gives little chance to anyone who thinks of cheating. We've signed a two-year contract, with an option for a third year. We're not interested in a short-term sponsorship, we want people to remember our name."

Photo (L-R): Andrea Monti, Alberto Balocco, Giacomo Catano

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More: 2013 Giro d'Italia

The the 3 weeks of the 2013 Giro d'Italia will look like this:
- 7 stages with sprint finishes,
- 5 stages over mid-height mountains,
- 5 stages over high mountains,
- 2 individual time trials; one an uphill TT; the two TTs total 92.4 km
- 1 team time trial; 17.4 km

The start will be in Naples on May 4 and finish in Brescia on May 26 having covered a distance of 3,405.3 km. It will leave Italy only once with a stage in France, stage 15, for the Col du Galibier, one of the classic climbs of the Tour de France.

The Giro will touch every region in the south of Italy except for Sicily, with a route from Naples to Basilicata and Calabria before heading back along the spine of the Adriatic coast through Puglia, Molise and Abruzzo. Then comes a 55.5 km individual time trial to Saltara (stage 8), the course where current Italian national team cycling coach Paolo Bettini became the Italian road race champion and where the time trial specialists could try to pull out a big enough gap to survive the final week of the Giro in the hope of staying in the pink jersey all the way to Brescia.

The Tre Cime di Lavaredo (Three Peaks of Lavaredo), stage 20, will be back and will be the penultimate stage of the 2013 Giro d'Italia, on Saturday May 25; they were first included in the Giro in 1967 and last included in 2007. The day before, stage 19, will feature a stage that includes the Gavia and the Stelvio.

The finishing stage in Brescia will be for the sprinters, a departure from recent editions. Recent winners in Brescia have been Cipollini (2002), Bettini (2006), and Greipel (2010).

New stages for the Giro will include the individual time trial up to Polsa (stage 18) as well as the team time trial in Forio di Ischia (stage 2), where in 1959, an individual time trial was held (it had been anticipated of that the winner of that stage would be Jacques Anquetil but the surprise winner was Antonino Catalano (Bianchi-Pirelli team) from Palermo, Sicily). There are other innovations, such as the start in Busseto to honor Giuseppe Verdi, and the San Sepolcro-Firenze stage 8 to honor Gino Bartali .

The stages, in English, and using a five star rating with 5 stars being the most difficult:

1st stage - 4 May NAPLES - NAPLES 156 km  *

2nd stage - 5 May ISCHIA - FORIO (team time trial) 17.4 km ***

3rd stage - 6 May SORRENTO - MARINA DI ASCEA 212 km ***

4th stage - 7 May POLICASTRO BUSSENTINO - SERRA SAN BRUNO 244 km ***

5th stage - 8 May COSENZA - MATERA 199 km **

6th stage - 9 May MOLA DI BARI - MARGHERITA DI SAVOIA 154 km *

7th stage - 10 May SAN SALVO - PESCARA 162 km ***

8th stage - 11 May GABICCE MARE - SALTARA (individual time trial) 55.5 km ****

9th stage - 12 May SANSEPOLCRO - FLORENCE 181 km ***

                  13 May Rest Day

10th stage - 14 May CORDENONS - ALTOPIANO DEL MONTASIO 167 km ****

11th stage - 15 May TARVISIO (Cave del Predil) - VAJONT 1963/2013 (Erto and Casso) 184 km **

12th stage - 16 May LONGARONE - TREVISO 127 km *

13th stage - 17 May BUSSETO - CHERASCO 242 km **

14th stage - 18 May CERVERE - BARDONECCHIA 156 km ****

15th stage - 19 May CESANA TORINESE - COL DU GALIBIER (Valloire) 150 km *****

                   20 May Rest Day

16th stage - 21 May VALLOIRE - IVREA 237 km **

17th stage - 22 May CARAVAGGIO - VICENZA 203 km *

18th stage - 23 May MORI - POLSA (individual time trial) 19.4 km ****

19th stage - 24 May PONTE DI LEGNO - VAL MARTELLO/MARTELLTAL 138 km *****

20th stage - 25 May SILANDRO/SCHLANDERS - TRE CIME DI LAVAREDO (      Auronzo di      Cadore) 202 km *****

21st stage - 26 May RIESE PIO X - BRESCIA 199 km *

At a glance:

Rider comments tomorrow...

Stories for the Italian Cycling Journal about rides, granfondos, touring, having a good time cycling in Italy, Italian cycling history, racing, etc. are always welcome.

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Contact me at veronaman@gmail.com. There are more than 2,600 stories in this blog. The search feature to the right works best for finding subjects in the blog. There is also a translate button at the bottom so you can translate each page.