The 1970 Giro d'Italia was the 53rd edition of the Giro, one of cycling's

Grand Tours In road bicycle racing, a Grand Tour is one of the three major European professional cycling stage races: Giro d'Italia, Tour de France, and Vuelta a España. Collectively they are termed the ''Grand Tours'', and all three races are similar in ...

. The race consisted of 20

stages Stage or stages may refer to: Acting * Stage (theatre), a space for the performance of theatrical productions * Theatre, a branch of the performing arts, often referred to as "the stage" * ''The Stage'', a weekly British theatre newspaper * S ...

, starting in

San Pellegrino Terme San Pellegrino Terme (Bergamasque: ) is a ''comune'' in the province of Bergamo, Lombardy, Italy. Located in the Val Brembana, it is the location of the beverage company San Pellegrino, where its carbonated mineral water drinks are produced. Th ...

on 18 May and finishing

Bolzano Bolzano ( or ; german: Bozen, (formerly ); bar, Bozn; lld, Balsan or ) is the capital city of the province of South Tyrol in northern Italy. With a population of 108,245, Bolzano is also by far the largest city in South Tyrol and the third la ...

on 7 June. There was one

time trial In many racing sports, an athlete (or occasionally a team of athletes) will compete in a time trial against the clock to secure the fastest time. The format of a time trial can vary, but usually follow a format where each athlete or team sets off at ...

stage and a single rest day.

Eddy Merckx Édouard Louis Joseph, Baron Merckx (, ; born 17 June 1945), better known as Eddy Merckx, is a Belgian former professional road and track bicycle racer who is among the most successful riders in the history of competitive cycling. His victorie ...

of the Faemino team won the overall

general classification The general classification (or the GC) in road bicycle racing is the category that tracks overall times for riders in multi-stage races. Each stage will have a stage winner, but the overall winner in the GC is the rider who has the fastest cumulati ...

, his second victory. Italians

Felice Gimondi Felice Gimondi (; 29 September 1942 – 16 August 2019) was an Italian professional racing cyclist. With his 1968 victory at the Vuelta a España, only three years after becoming a professional cyclist, Gimondi, nicknamed "The Phoenix", was the ...

(Salvarani) placed second, 3 min and 14 s slower than Merckx, and

Martin Van Den Bossche Martin Van Den Bossche (born 10 March 1941) is a retired Belgian professional road bicycle racer. Van Den Bossche finished in the top 10 of the Tour de France twice, and won the Mountains classification of the 1970 Giro d'Italia. Major results ...

(Molteni) was third, nearly five minutes behind Merckx.

Teams

A total of 13 teams were invited to participate in the 1970 Giro d'Italia. Each team sent a squad of ten riders, so the Giro began with a peloton of 130 cyclists. Out of the 130 riders that started this edition of the Giro d'Italia, a total of 97 riders made it to the finish in

. The teams that took part in the race were:

Pre-race favorites

The starting peloton did feature the previous year's winner

(Salvarani). Despite an initial unwillingness to participate relating to his expulsion the year before,

chose to enter the race after the race organizers agreed to send all doping controls to

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

rather than conduct them in a van that moved with the race. Merckx entered as the primary favorite to win the race. He entered the race having already won several races that season including:

Paris–Nice Paris–Nice is a professional cycling stage race in France, held annually since 1933. Raced over eight days, the race usually starts with a prologue in the Paris region and ends with a final stage either in Nice or on the Col d'Èze overlookin ...

Paris–Roubaix Paris–Roubaix is a one-day professional bicycle road race in northern France, starting north of Paris and finishing in Roubaix, at the border with Belgium. It is one of cycling's oldest races, and is one of the 'Monuments' or classics of the ...

, and

La Flèche Wallonne La Flèche Wallonne (, French for "The Walloon Arrow") is a men's professional cycle road race held in April each year in Wallonia, Belgium. The first of two Belgian Ardennes classics, La Flèche Wallonne is today normally held mid-week betw ...

, among others. ''Le Confédéré'' felt that Merckx's greatest challenge would come not from Italian riders, but the Belgian

Walter Godefroot Walter Godefroot (born 2 July 1943) is a retired Belgian professional road bicycle racer and former directeur sportif of , later known as T-Mobile Team. As amateur cyclist, he won the bronze medal in the individual road race of the 1964 Summer ...

(Salvarani). Godefroot was thought to be the leader for the Salvarani team as Gimondi entered the race in poor form.

Gianni Motta Gianni Motta (born 13 March 1943) is an Italian former bicycle racer who won the 1966 Giro d'Italia. Gianni Motta was born at Cassano d'Adda (Lombardy). His main victories include the Giro d'Italia (1966), a Giro di Lombardia (1964), a Tour d ...

was absent from the race as he was recovering from a

knee In humans and other primates, the knee joins the thigh with the leg and consists of two joints: one between the femur and tibia (tibiofemoral joint), and one between the femur and patella (patellofemoral joint). It is the largest joint in the hu ...

operation earlier in the season.

Route and stages

The route was revealed on 31 March 1970 by race director Vincenzo Torriani. The race covered across twenty stages and one rest day. Compared to the previous edition, the 1970 edition was shorter and included only four stages longer than with stage 14 being the longest at . In April, the route was announced to have nineteen categorized climbs that awarded points towards the

mountains classification The King of the Mountains (KoM) is an award given to the best climbing specialist in a men's cycling road race; in women's cycle racing A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a femal ...

, while the final route included seven more categorized climbs. In total, were climbed.

hosted the race's start and then it travelled west, visiting the

Alps The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Sw ...

before turning south and then east towards

Treviso Treviso ( , ; vec, Trevixo) is a city and ''comune'' in the Veneto region of northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Treviso and the municipality has 84,669 inhabitants (as of September 2017). Some 3,000 live within the Veneti ...

. A transfer then occurred to

Terracina Terracina is an Italian city and ''comune'' of the province of Latina, located on the coast southeast of Rome on the Via Appia ( by rail). The site has been continuously occupied since antiquity. History Ancient times Terracina appears in anci ...

and the race moved north along the coast. The race made its way to the

Dolomites The Dolomites ( it, Dolomiti ; Ladin: ''Dolomites''; german: Dolomiten ; vec, Dołomiti : fur, Dolomitis), also known as the Dolomite Mountains, Dolomite Alps or Dolomitic Alps, are a mountain range located in northeastern Italy. They form par ...

for three stages before finishing in

. The route did not visit

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

for the first time in race history. The route featured less transition stages than in previous years, which was thought to allow for more action in the race.

Classification leadership

Two different jerseys were worn during the 1970 Giro d'Italia. The leader of the

– calculated by adding the stage finish times of each rider – wore a pink jersey. This classification is the most important of the race, and its winner is considered as the winner of the Giro. For the

points classification The points classification is a secondary award category in road bicycle racing. Points are given for high finishes and, in some cases, for winning sprints at certain places along the route, most often called ''intermediate sprints''. The points cl ...

, which awarded a cyclamen jersey to its leader, cyclists were given points for finishing a stage in the top 15. Before the start of the 1970, Termozeta replaced

Dreher Brewery Dreher (Kőbánya) Brewery (Dreher Sörgyárak) in Budapest is owned by Asahi Breweries. Its main products are the Dreher Gold, Arany Ászok and Kőbányai Világos pilsener-style lagers but it also brews Dreher Bak (a double bock), a full-bodied ...

as the sponsor of the points classification and so the color of the leader's jersey changed from red to cyclamen. The

leader. The climbs were ranked in first and second categories, the former awarded 50, 30, and 20 points while the latter awarded 30, 20, and 10 points. In this ranking, points were won by reaching the summit of a climb ahead of other cyclists. In addition there was the ''

Cima Coppi The ''Cima Coppi'' is the title given to the highest peak in the yearly running of the Giro d'Italia, one of cycling's Grand Tour races. The mountain that is given this title each year awards more mountains classification points to the first rider ...

'', the Passo Pordoi, which was the highest mountain crossed in this edition of the race, which gave 200, 100, 80, 70, and 50 points to the first five riders summit the climb. The first rider over the Passo Pordoi was

Luciano Armani Luciano Armani (12 October 1940 – 4 February 2023) was an Italian professional road bicycle racer. In the 1971 Tour de France, Luis Ocaña was leading the race after his great victory in the 11th stage, Eddy Merckx was more than 10 minutes b ...

. Although no jersey was awarded, there was also one classification for the teams, in which the stage finish times of the best three cyclists per team were added; the leading team was the one with the lowest total time.

Final standings

General classification

Mountains classification

Points classification

Traguardi tricolori classification

Teams classification

References

Citations

Bibliography

* {{1970 Super Prestige Pernod

1970 Events January * January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC. * January 5 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli intensity of X (''Extrem ...

Giro d'Italia, 1970 Giro d'Italia, 1970 Giro d'Italia Giro d'Italia 1970 Super Prestige Pernod