Giro Rosa lands new title sponsor in Iccrea

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Organisers of the Giro d'Italia Internazionale Femminile, more commonly known as the Giro Rosa, announced Wednesday that they have secured Iccrea Group as the event's new title sponsor. Largely considered the only women's Grand Tour, the Giro Rosa Iccrea will celebrate it's 30th edition this year with 10 days of racing between July 5-14.

Iccrea Group (Istituto Centrale delle Casse Rurali ed Artigiane) is a central institution of Italian credit unions and rural saving banks. It has signed on to title sponsor the Giro Rosa for three years, taking the race through 2021. Iccrea has chosen to financially back the Giro Rosa in order to support the push to create a "central role of the woman in today's society," the organisation noted in the press release.

"The Group thinks that the potential of women, sometimes unexpress, deserves to be promoted in every range - starting from the professional - to support a continuous, cultural and social evolution. In the end, for a strong share of the sport values of cycling, like the promotion of the single athlete, without forgetting the cooperation and the force that make a team united to the finish."

The new slogan for the Giro Rosa Iccrea will be, "In Group we arrive everywhere", symbolic of the women competing together in the peloton across northern Italy.

"This partnership makes us proud, not just because it is the first sponsorship of Iccrea, but first because it proves the effort that Iccrea is producing to give value to women [within the sports and the community] ..." said Leonardo Rubattu, general Director of Iccrea Banca, in a press release. "In the last decade, there is presence of women at the top of the BCC but I think that there is still a lot to do."

This year's Giro Rosa route has yet to be announced but some details have emerged. The event will begin with a team time trial from Cassano Spinola to Castellani, and take a northerly route across Italy. It will include a summit finish atop the Passo di Gavia, which stands at an altitude of 2,621 metres. Organisers will present the full route in March.

Organisers also pointed to the special relationship between the Iccrea Cooperative Bank Group and the 2019 route of the Giro Rosa, noting that there are 142 banks that accept Iccrea, with 2,641 offices and 4.2 million of guests. In addition, there are 46 BCC Banks in the Central-Northern Italy, twelve are directly involved or are near the route of the Giro Rosa.

This year's edition of the Giro Rosa will mark the 14th round of the Women's WorldTour. Last year, Annemiek van Vleuten (Mitchelton-Scott) won the overall title ahead of Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio and Amanda Spratt.