1988 Giro D'Italia

The 1988 Giro d'Italia was the 71st edition of the Giro d'Italia, one of cycling's Grand Tours. The Giro started off in Urbino on 23 May with a 9 km (5.6 mi) individual time trial. The race concluded in Vittorio Veneto with a 43 km (26.7 mi) individual time trial on 12 June. Twenty teams entered the race, which was won by American Andrew Hampsten of the 7-Eleven-Hoonved team. Second and third respectively were the Dutchman Erik Breukink and the Swiss rider, Urs Zimmermann. It was the third time – and for the second year in succession – in the history of the Giro, that the podium was occupied solely by non-Italian riders. Breukink had been part of the non-Italian podium in 1987, behind Ireland's Stephen Roche and Great Britain's Robert Millar.

Hampsten first gained the race lead after the famed fourteenth stage, through the Gavia Pass and to Bormio, where the riders battled a snowstorm and horrid conditions. The race's overall classification had been headed for several days beforehand by Massimo Podenzana, who participated in a breakaway during stage 4a, which won him sufficient time to hold the race leader's pink jersey for more than a week. Franco Chioccioli briefly wore the maglia rosa for a two stage period, before Hampsten took the lead after stage 14. After gaining the race lead, Hampsten began to build up a solid two-minute barrier against the second-placed rider, Breukink. Hampsten's two-minute buffer would prove to be sufficient enough to win him the race, while losing around twenty seconds in the final two stages.

Andrew Hampsten became the first American, and non-European, to win the Giro d'Italia. Hampsten also won the secondary mountains and combination classifications, as well as the special sprints classification. In the race's other classifications, Fanini – Seven Up rider Stefano Tomasini of Italy finished as the best rider aged 25 or under in the general classification, finishing in ninth place overall; Johan van der Velde of the GIS – Ecoflam – Jolly team was the winner of the points classification, with Carrera Jeans-Vagabond finishing as the winners of the Trofeo Fast Team, ranking each of the twenty teams contesting the race by lowest cumulative time.