The 1936 Giro d'Italia was the 24th edition of the Giro d'Italia, organized and sponsored by the newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport. The race began on 16 May in Milan with a stage that stretched to Turin, finishing back in Milan on 7 June after a stage and a total distance covered of . The race was won by Gino Bartali of the Legnano team, with fellow Italians Giuseppe Olmo and Severino Canavesi coming in second and third respectively.
Of the 89 riders that began the Giro d'Italia on 16 May, 45 of them made it to the finish in Rome on 7 June. Riders were allowed to ride on their own or as a member of a team; 46 riders competed as part of a team, while the remaining 44 competed independently. The seven teams that partook in the race were: Bianchi, Dei, Fréjus, Ganna, Gloria, Legnano, and Maino.
The peloton was composed of only Italian riders due to the political situation involving Italy at the time. The field featured two former Giro d'Italia winners with Costante Girardengo who won the race in 1919 and 1923 and the returning champion Vasco Bergamaschi. Other notable Italian riders included Gino Bartali, Giovanni Valetti, and Giuseppe Olmo.
The first eight stages all ended in sprints. With the absence of time bonuses, this meant that multiple riders were leading the general classification in the same time, with the pink jersey given to the rider with the best positions in these stages. After the sixth stage, not even these position could decide which rider should get the pink jersey, so Olmo and Bini were both given the pink jersey. The eighth stage was won by Olimpio Bizzi, who was nineteen years old at the time. He is the youngest winner of a Giro d'Italia stage as of 2025, and the only teenager.
In the ninth stage, Bartali took the lead with an escape over the Passo Rionero. Bartali won six minutes, and took a firm lead in the general classification.
In the remaining stages, Bartali won almost every major climb. Olmo was able to win back a few minutes, mostly in the two individual time trials, but this was not enough, and Bartali became the winner of the 1936 Giro d'Italia.
The leader of the general classification â calculated by adding the stage finish times of each rider â wore a pink jersey. This classification is the most important of the race, and its winner is considered as the winner of the Giro.
The highest ranked isolati cyclist in the general classification were tracked, and the best isolati rider wore the white jersey.
In the mountains classification, the race organizers selected different mountains that the route crossed and awarded points to the riders who crossed them first.
The winner of the team classification was determined by adding the finish times of the best three cyclists per team together and the team with the lowest total time was the winner. If a rider from a team abandoned the race, he could be replaced by a rider who started the 1936 Giro as isolated rider.
The rows in the following table correspond to the jerseys awarded after that stage was run.