The Giro d'Italia returns on Saturday in the first Grand Tour of the 2019 season.

Chris Froome, the 2018 champion, is absent - as is Team INEOS colleague Geraint Thomas - and so another rider will be looking to pounce.

Tom Dumoulin won in 2017, while Simon Yates led for much of last year's race before a spectacular collapse.

Ahead of the start this weekend, we look at the key Opta numbers behind the Giro.


102 - This will be the 102nd Giro d'Italia.

15 - Of the last 22 editions, 15 have been won by Italian riders. Vincenzo Nibali was the most recent home winner, triumphing for a second time in 2016.

5 - The last five Giro winners have been from five different countries: Colombia (Nairo Quintana), Spain (Alberto Contador), Italy (Nibali), Netherlands (Dumoulin) and Great Britain (Froome).

1 - Froome’s success last year saw him become the first British winner of the Giro.

8 - It is eight years since a rider won both the general classification and the points classification in the same year. Michele Scarponi did so in 2011.

16 - The smallest margin of victory since 1974 was 16 seconds, when Ryder Hesjedal triumphed in 2012. Five of the last eight Giros – including the last three - have seen a winning margin of less than a minute.

20 - Fausto Coppi, 20 years and eight months in 1940, is the youngest rider to win the Giro. At the other end of the scale, Fiorenzo Magni, at 34 years and six months in 1955, is the oldest.

3 - Yates could become the third rider in the 21st century to win the Vuelta a Espana and then the Giro in succession, as achieved previously by Alberto Contador (2014-15) and Froome (2017-18).

2 - In each of his last three Grand Tours - including a pair of Giro appearances - Dumoulin has finished in the top two. He has also been in the top 3 in each of his last seven individual time trials in a Grand Tour, bagging four wins during that span.