Giro d'Italia 1959

The 42nd Giro d'Italia was held in 22 sections and 3,657 kilometers from May 16 to June 7, 1959 and won by Charly Gaul from Luxembourg . Of the 130 riders who started, 86 reached the finish in Milan .

course

The tour developed into a duel between the outstanding time trial driver Jacques Anquetil and the mountain specialist Charly Gaul .

The first week included a mountain finish on the Abetone and three time trial stages, one of which was a mountain time trial leading up the slopes of Vesuvius .

As expected, Jacques Anquetil won the two flat time trial stages , while Gaul won the mountain time trial and the mountain finish at Abetone. Since Gaul was able to keep his losses against Anquetil within limits even in the flat time trials, he led the overall standings with a 1:57 minute lead over Anquetil after completing eight stages.

Anquetil then succeeded in gaining time again in the mountainous stages to San Marino and Bozen Gaul through clever tactical maneuvers, so much that even after 15 stages he took the lead in the overall classification with 1:37 minutes ahead of Gaul.

The 19th stage was a 51-kilometer time trial up the Susa valley. It was to be expected that Anquetil would be able to further extend his lead over Gaul, but as soon as Anquetil overtook Gaul on the track, who had started two minutes ahead of him, he attached himself to his rear wheel in an inadmissible manner and was able to limit his time losses. Gaul started the last big mountain stage over the Great St. Bernhard , the Col de la Forclaz and the Little St. Bernhard to Courmayeur, 3:36 minutes behind Anquetil .

As announced in advance, Gaul attacked on the last mountain and Anquetil, who had been able to follow Gaul with difficulty and hardship, was left behind, he lost over 9 minutes that day and thus the lead to Charly Gaul.

The stages

stage	from	to	km	winner	Maglia pink
1	Milan	Salsomaggiore Terme	135	Rik Van Looy	Rik Van Looy
2	Salsomaggiore Terme	Salsomaggiore Terme	22 ( EZF )	Jacques Anquetil	Jacques Anquetil
3	Salsomaggiore Terme	Abetone	180	Charly Gaul	Charly Gaul
4th	Abetone	Arezzo	178	Armando Pellegrini
5	Arezzo	Rome	243	Rik Van Looy
6th	Rome	Naples	213	Miguel Poblet
7th	Naples	Vesuvius	8 (EZF)	Charly Gaul
8th	Ischia	Ischia	31 (EZF)	Antonino Catalano
9	Naples	Vasto	206	Gastone Nencini
10	Vasto	Teramo	148	Rino Benedetti
11	Ascoli Piceno	Rimini	245	Rik Van Looy
12	Rimini	San Marino ( SMR )	141	Nino Defilippis
13	Rimini	Verona	233	Miguel Poblet
14th	Verona	Rovereto	143	Rick Van Looy
15th	Trent	Bolzano	198	Miguel Poblet	Jacques Anquetil
16	Bolzano	San Pellegrino Terme	245	Alessandro Fantini
17th	San Pellegrino Terme	Genoa	241	Arrigo Padovan
18th	Genoa	Turin	180	Vito Favero
19th	Turin	Susa	51 (EZF)	Jacques Anquetil
20th	Turin	Saint Vincent	100	Alfredo Sabbadin
21st	Aosta	Courmayeur	296	Charly Gaul	Charly Gaul
22nd	Courmayeur	Milan	229	Rolf Graf

Final results

winner	Charly Gaul	101: 50: 26 h
Second	Jacques Anquetil	+ 6:12 min
Third	Diego Ronchini	+ 6:16 min
Fourth	Rik Van Looy	+ 7:17 min
fifth	Imerio Massignan	+ 7:31 min
Sixth	Miguel Poblet	+ 10:21 min
seventh	Graziano Battistini	+ 10:47 min
Eighth	Guido Carlesi	+ 13:35 min
Ninth	Ernesto Bono	+ 13:36 min
Tenth	Gastone Nencini	+ 13:49 min
Mountain scoring	Charly Gaul
Second	Imerio Massignan
Third	Hennes Junkermann
Team evaluation	Atala-Pirelli

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 1959 Giro d'Italia by BikeRaceInfo. Retrieved June 10, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Wayback Machine. March 28, 2019, accessed June 10, 2019 .