Tweets from fans and riders to appear on leader's jersey
The newly-designed maglia rosa for the 2011 Giro d'Italia. (Image credit: Stephen Farrand)
Cycling fans have their chance to help design next year’s maglia rosa for the Giro d’Italia. Italian manufacturer, Santini, who design the famous jersey, has come up with three designs, allowing fans to vote for their favourite.
Santini and the Giro organisers have also opened a competition that allows fans to suggest messages that can be included on the jersey.
Fans can tweet what the Giro means to them with #magliarosa. The best 10 will be printed on the jersey along with the best 10 tweets from professional riders. Entries close at the end of the month. Fans can vote on which jersey they like here.
2010 Giro d’Italia winner Ivan Basso (Liquigas Cannondale) was at the launch at Eurobike and gave a scintillating endorsement of the competition: "It is the dream of every Italian boy to win the Giro d'Italia and wear the maglia rosa, so for me to win it twice is, of course, is a dream come true. But I want to win it for a third time.”
The Italian added: "Twitter and Facebook are very important to me because they allow me to keep in touch with my fans, especially the young ones." Basso is a regular Tweeter and recently Tweeted “Buongiorno da Colorado Springs …” and “The 1st emotion,the 2nd glory,the 3rd...a dream #magliarosa”
“I write naturally what comes to me in my mind. Some of my fans want to hear about the technical side of racing and others are more interested in me personally and I try to contact with both of these types of fans.”
When asked what he'd tweet about the Giro, Basso thought long and hard before answering: “I will simple tweet that Ivan Basso wants to win a third Giro d'Italia.”
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Daniel Benson was the Editor in Chief at Cyclingnews.com between 2008 and 2022. Based in the UK, he joined the Cyclingnews team in 2008 as the site's first UK-based Managing Editor. In that time, he reported on over a dozen editions of the Tour de France, several World Championships, the Tour Down Under, Spring Classics, and the London 2012 Olympic Games. With the help of the excellent editorial team, he ran the coverage on Cyclingnews and has interviewed leading figures in the sport including UCI Presidents and Tour de France winners.
