Vincenzo Nibali (Astana Pro Team) completed a spectacular comeback to win the 2016 Giro d'Italia, his second victory at the corsa rosa and his fourth Grand Tour title.
Having found himself nearly five minutes down and out of sorts after 18 stages, the Italian rebounded to take a solo win in Risoul on stage 19 after race leader Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo) crashed and lost time. Nibali was 44 seconds down on new maglia rosa Esteban Chaves (Orica-GreenEdge) going into the final mountain stage, and he duly dropped the Colombian on the penultimate climb, pressing home his advantage to seal overall victory by 52 seconds. As Kruijswijk suffered with his injuries, Alejandro Valverde pressed on to take the final podium spot.
The GC was set in stone on the final stage to Turin, which was only really a race from the point of view of the sprinters. Giacomo Nizzolo (Trek-Segafredo) thought he had finally put an end to his string of near misses at the Giro when he crossed the line first, but elation turned to despair as he was relegated for an illegal sprint, with the win going to Giant Alpecin's Nikias Arndt.
Alberto Contador won the last edition of the Giro d'Italia, beating Fabio Aru and Mikel Landa. The Spaniard will not return in 2016, however, as he aims for victory in the Tour de France. Instead, Vincenzo Nibali is expected to lead the line in terms of the GC favourites. The Astana rider won the Giro d'Italia in 2013 and returns looking for another title.
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Overall there are seven mountain stages in the 2015 race, and seven stages for the sprinters. The race also has 61 kilometres of individual time trialling, with no team time trial included. The race starts with a individual time trial (not prologue), while the full race distance covers 3,383km (average stage length 161km).
