The 1997 Giro d'Italia was the 80th edition of the
Giro. It began on 17 May with a mass-start stage that began and ended in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
. The race came to a close on 8 June with a mass-start stage that ended in the Italian city of
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 ...
. Eighteen teams entered the race that was won by the Italian
Ivan Gotti
Ivan Gotti (born 28 March 1969) is an Italian former professional road racing cyclist.
Gotti was born at San Pellegrino Terme, Lombardy. He first came to prominence by finishing 5th overall in the 1995 Tour de France. The highlights of his caree ...
of the team.
Second and third were the Russian rider
Pavel Tonkov
Pavel Sergeyevich Tonkov (russian: Павел Сергеевич Тонков; born 9 February 1969 in Izhevsk) is a former professional road racing cyclist from Russia. His talents were first showcased when winning the world junior title as part ...
and Italian
Giuseppe Guerini.
In the race's other classifications, rider
Chepe González
José Jaime González Pico (born July 28, 1968, in Sogamoso, Boyacá Department, Boyacá), also known as Chepe González, is a Colombian people, Colombian former road bicycle racer. He won stages in Tour de France and Giro d'Italia. He also wo ...
won the mountains classification,
Mario Cipollini
Mario Cipollini (; born 22 March 1967), often abbreviated to "Cipo", is a retired Italian professional road cyclist most noted for his sprinting ability, the longevity of his dominance (his first pro win came in 1988, his last in 2005; 170 pro ...
of the Saeco team won the points classification, and rider
Dimitri Konyshev
Dimitri Konyshev (Russian Дмитрий Борисович Конышев; born 18 February 1966 in Gorky) is a Russian former road bicycle racer. During the 1989 World Championship he can be seen in a rather famous photo of cycling history s ...
won the intergiro classification.
Kelme - Costa Blanca finished as the winners of the ''Trofeo Fast Team'' classification, ranking each of the eighteen teams contesting the race by lowest cumulative time.
The other team classification, the ''Trofeo Super Team'' classification, where the teams' riders are awarded points for placing within the top twenty in each stage and the points are then totaled for each team was won by Saeco.
Teams
Eighteen teams were invited by the race organizers to participate in the 1997 edition of the Giro d'Italia.
Each team sent a squad of ten riders, which meant that the race started with a peloton of 180 cyclists.
From the riders that began the race, 110 made it to the finish in Milan.
The eighteen teams that took part in the race were:
Route and stages
The route for the 1997 Giro d'Italia was unveiled by race director Carmine Castellano on 9 November 1996 in Milan.
It contained two time trial events, all of which were individual. There were ten stages containing high mountains, of which three had summit finishes: stage 5, to
Monte Terminillo
Monte Terminillo is a massif in the Monti Reatini, part of the Abruzzi Apennine range in central Italy. It is located some 20 km from Rieti and 100 km from Rome and has a highest altitude of .
It is a typical Apennine massif, both fo ...
; stage 14, to
Breuil-Cervinia
Breuil-Cervinia (french: Breuil; it, Cervinia; Valdôtain: ) is a ''frazione'' of the ''comune'' of Valtournenche, and is considered one of the most renowned winter and summer tourist resorts in the Alps.
Etymology
The name of ''Breuil-Cervini ...
; and stage 20, to
Passo del Tonale
Tonale Pass ( it, Passo del Tonale) (el. 1883 m./6178 ft.) is a high mountain pass in northern Italy across the Rhaetian Alps, between Lombardy and Trentino.
It connects Valcamonica and Val di Sole. It is delimited by the Ortl ...
.
The organizers chose to include one rest day. When compared to the
previous year's race, the race was shorter, contained the same amount of rest days and stages, as well as one more individual time trial.
Classification leadership
Four different jerseys were worn during the 1997 Giro d'Italia. The leader of the
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 ...
– calculated by adding the stage finish times of each rider, and allowing time bonuses for the first three finishers on
mass-start stages – 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 purple (or
cyclamen
''Cyclamen'' ( or ) is a genus of 23 species of perennial flowering plants in the family Primulaceae. ''Cyclamen'' species are native to Europe and the Mediterranean Basin east to the Caucasus and Iran, with one species in Somalia. They grow ...
) jersey to its leader,
cyclists were given points for finishing a stage in the top 15; additional points could also be won in intermediate sprints. The green jersey was awarded to 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 ...
leader.
In this ranking, points were won by reaching the summit of a climb ahead of other cyclists. Each climb was ranked as either first, second or third category, with more points available for higher category climbs. 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 race's highest point of elevation, awarded more points than the other first category climbs.
''The Cima Coppi'' for this Giro was the
Pordoi Pass
Pordoi is a pass in the Dolomites in the Alps, located between the Sella group in the north and the Marmolada group in the south. The pass is at an altitude of , and the road crossing the pass connects Arabba (Livinallongo del Col di Lana) with Ca ...
and was first climbed by the Colombian
José Jaime González. The
intergiro classification was marked by a blue jersey.
The calculation for the intergiro is similar to that of the general classification, in each stage there is a midway point that the riders pass through a point and where their time is stopped. As the race goes on, their times compiled and the person with the lowest time is the leader of the intergiro classification and wears the blue jersey.
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.
The rows in the following table correspond to the jerseys awarded after that stage was run.
Final standings
General classification
Points classification
Mountains classification
Intergiro classification
Trofeo Fast Team classification
Trofeo Super Team classification
References
Citations
{{Giro d'Italia
1997
File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...
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