The Giro d’Italia appears on the cycling calendar with little hope. The pink round has traditionally resisted our team, being, by far, the stage where we have won the least compared to the Tour de France or the Vuelta a España. One of the factors that prevented the national cycling from registering its name before was that The Vuelta a España coincided on the calendar with the Giro until 1995 when it was moved to the end of August.
The Spanish loot in Italian lands is dominated by the great Miguel Indurain and Alberto Contador. Both, perhaps the best runners in the general classifications of Spain in history, had to face various adversities to succeed in a cursed scenario for others who were left with honey on their lips, such as the cases of Purito Rodríguez, Carlos Sastre, David Arroyo, Abraham Olano, Quique Gutiérrez, Francisco Galdós and José Manuel Fuente. All of them finished second in a race where local cyclists traditionally stick their nails out and win at will.
Indurain inaugurated the Spanish record in 1992 with an unappealable victory over Claudio Chiappucci. ‘El Diablo’ did everything possible to avenge the Navarrese’s triumph in the 1991 Tour, but succumbed to the Spaniard in the time trial. In 1993, ‘Miguelón’ would repeat history by winning ahead of Ugrumov and Chiappucci, although the Latvian put him against the ropes in a time trial in Sestriere, winning this race by just 58 seconds, the shortest margin of his career. In 1994, Indurain was unable to quell the attacks of two very young Berzin and Pantani, who relegated him to third place on the podium.
15 years after Indurain’s last triumph, Alberto Contador appeared in Italy out of shape after changing his calendar at the last minute. The Astana team was vetoed by the organization of the Tour de France and the Pinteño had to go for a pink jersey that had a very difficult time against Riccardo ‘La Cobra’ Ricco. The young Italian, later stripped of his results for doping, made the Spaniard sweat ink to secure victory by a margin of less than two minutes.
Contador would win the 2011 Giro, but his results were invalidated by the Clenbuterol case in the 2010 Tour. The Spaniard would make up for that thorn in 2015 by starring in an epic battle against the duo formed by Fabio Aru and a very young Mikel Landa who finished third. The Pinteño made a memorable comeback on the Mortirolo after a mechanical failure, overtaking the entire peloton on the climb until he caught up with his rivals. He too won by a narrow margin of 1 minute and 53 seconds.
In this 2022, Spanish cycling will cling to a Mikel Landa who has not been lucky in this race reaping various dropouts. The man from Vitoria will lead the Spanish hopes of donning the pink jersey, although no one should lose sight of the options of an Alejandro Valverde who was on the podium in 2016 when he ran the Italian race for the first and only time. Let’s hope that the Giro stops being a cursed land for Spanish cyclists.