The 1922 Giro d'Italia was the tenth edition of the Giro d'Italia, a Grand Tour organized and sponsored by the newspaperLa Gazzetta dello Sport. The race began on 24 May in Milan with a stage that stretched 326 km (203 mi) to Padua, finishing back in Milan on 11 June after a 348 km (216 mi) stage and a total distance covered of 3,095 km (1,923 mi). The race was won by the Italian rider Giovanni Brunero of the Legnano team. Second and third respectively were the Italian riders Bartolomeo Aymo and Giuseppe Enrici.
Of the 75 riders that began the Giro d'Italia on 24 May, fifteen of them made it to the finish in Milan on 11 June.[1] Riders were allowed to ride on their own or as a member of a team. There were four teams that competed in the race: Bianchi-Salga, Ganna-Dunlop, Legnano-Pirelli, and Maino-Bergougnan.[1]
In the first stage, Giovanni Brunero was leading the race solo, when he crashed, and broke a wheel. When his team mate Alfredo Sivocci reached him, Sivocci gave his wheel to Brunero. Brunero continued and won the stage. However, wheel changes were not allowed, so the competing teams appealed to the jury, requesting Brunero to be disqualified. The jury did so, but after appeal from Brunero and his team, they allowed Brunero to continue, and asked the Italian Cycling federation to decide what should happen.[1]
Brunero thus started the second stage as leader. That second stage was won by Girardengo, but Brunero remained in the lead. In the third stage, all riders finished in the same time (the first time that this happened in the Giro[2]), so Brunero remained leader. However, the Italian cycling federation came with a verdict: Brunero was allowed to continue in the Giro, but was given a penalty of 25 minutes. This made Belloni the new leader, with Girardengo in second place. Belloni and Girardengo were not satisfied with this outcome, and thought that Brunero should have been disqualified; out of protest, they and their teams left the race.[1] The Legnano team was now almost unopposed, and Bartolomeo Aymo became the new leader in the general classification, with Brunero just behind him.
Aymo remained leader until the seventh stage, where Brunero made use of his superior climbing skills, gaining a few minutes on his team mate. Over the next stages, Brunero extended his lead, and became the winner of the 1922 Giro.[1]
There were fifteen cyclists who had completed all ten stages. For these cyclists, the times they had needed in each stage was added up for the general classification. The cyclist with the least accumulated time was the winner.
There were two other classifications contested at the race. A juniors classification was won Giuseppe Enrici and the isolati classification was won by Domenico Schierano.[3][4] Each of these classifications were calculated like the general classification.
^In 1922, there was no distinction in the rules between plain stages and mountain stages; the icons shown here indicate that the first, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth stages included major mountains.
^"Il Giro ciclisto d'Italia" [The Cycling Tour of Italy]. La Stampa (in Italian). Editrice La Stampa. 12 June 1922. p. 4. Retrieved 27 May 2012.
^"I vincitori delle categorie speciali" [The winners of the special categories]. Corriere dello Sport (in Italian). 14 June 1950. p. 6. Archived from the original on 22 December 2014. Retrieved 7 July 2013.
Gaetano Belloni (ITA)
