The race started on 7 May with a team time trial in Turin to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Italian unification, when the city served as the first capital of the single state.

In the third stage, Leopard Trek rider Wouter Weylandt crashed coming down the Passo del Bocco, near the town of Mezzanego, suffering catastrophic injury.

He also won the points competition as the most consistent high finisher, also with a substantial lead over Scarponi in second place, and Vincenzo Nibali completed the podium.

In February 2012, the Court of Arbitration for Sport decided that Contador, following his positive test for clenbuterol at the 2010 Tour de France, lost his results since that event.

Despite talk that ProTeam Vacansoleil–DCM might be excluded due to the doping scandals involving team members Riccardo Riccò and Ezequiel Mosquera, they were included pursuant to UCI rules.

[5] The full list of participating teams is: While the Giro had in its peloton many notable riders, including six former Grand Tour winners, the odds-on favorite was always Saxo Bank–SunGard's Alberto Contador.

[6] Though his status was put in doubt after a positive test for clenbuterol at the 2010 Tour de France,[7] he was cleared by his national federation in February 2011 and able to return to racing,[8] though the case still pended a final appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport later in 2011.

The other five former Grand Tour winners in the field were Stefano Garzelli, Danilo Di Luca, Denis Menchov, Carlos Sastre, and Vincenzo Nibali.

[23] While the BMC Racing Team was unlikely to field an overall favorite, given that their top man Cadel Evans chose to focus on the Tour de France, they were also affected by the investigation, for the second year in a row.

[25] The near total dearth of flat, sprinter-friendly stages did not stop sprinters Mark Cavendish,[26] Tyler Farrar,[27] and Alessandro Petacchi,[28] from all taking the start.

[30] The Leopard Trek team had intended to send Daniele Bennati, a former winner of the points classification in the Giro d'Italia who had had great success at the recently run Circuit de la Sarthe.

That squad therefore turned their sprinting hopes to the rider originally set to be Bennati's leadout man, Belgian sprinter Wouter Weylandt.

[35] While there were five stages classified as flat, and Italian sprinter Alessandro Petacchi claimed he saw as many as seven potential sprint finishes,[32] consensus was overwhelming that the majority of the route favored the strongest of the climbers at the expense of other riders.

[38] Team Sky sporting director Sean Yates called the route "brutal"[39] and said that serious Tour de France contenders would not bother coming to the race since it was so difficult.

The Crostis is not a well-maintained pass, and Giro officials had set out a detailed protocol whereby team cars would not follow the race up or down the mountain, and only motorbikes offering wheel changes would be present with the riders.

The remaining members of his team Leopard Trek, as well as training partner Tyler Farrar from the Garmin–Cervélo squad, crossed the finish line first with their arms around one another before withdrawing from the race that evening.

While Garmin–Cervélo's Christophe Le Mével, who entered the day third overall and had on two other occasions come within a time bonus of claiming the jersey, made the group, neither he nor anyone in it was destined to take pink.

[60][61] Wearing a black armband to memorialize fellow Spanish cyclist Xavier Tondó who, though not a participant in the race, died while it was run, Contador dominantly won the stage 16 uphill individual time trial.

[82] A short time later, Weylandt's body was airlifted off the descent and taken to a nearby hospital, where the pathologist conducting the autopsy concluded that the Belgian had died immediately upon crashing.

[87] David Millar, who had taken the race lead that same day, spent the evening discussing with members of Leopard Trek, Weylandt's best friend Tyler Farrar, and his girlfriend and mother how best to pay tribute to the fallen rider.

[91][92] Farrar later revealed that his inclusion with the Leopard Trek squad in the final moments of the neutralized stage was a decision made solely on their part, one for which he felt extremely grateful.

[58] On 23 May, during the second rest day of the Giro, Xavier Tondó, the reigning Vuelta a Castilla y León champion and one of the leaders on the season for the Movistar Team, was killed in a freak accident at home while preparing to train with teammates.

Tondó's teammate Branislau Samoilau posted a time that was provisionally best much of the day and was visibly overcome with emotion when interviewed by assembled media after his ride.

[109] Fans could also participate in a promotion called "Tweet Your Maglia Rosa" where they would submit 140-character or fewer Twitter messages describing what the pink jersey means to them.

They were set to be printed on the jersey along with tweets from Ivan Basso, Cadel Evans, Alberto Contador, and Vincenzo Nibali, in the respective riders' native languages.

[110] Alberto Contador rode the Giro with full knowledge that he was to answer to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) regarding his positive test for clenbuterol at the 2010 Tour de France, since his national federation cleared him of doping charges but both the UCI and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) chose to appeal the ruling.

It was originally scheduled for June, to occur soon enough to decide conclusively his status prior to the 2011 Tour de France, but it was instead pushed back to August and then again to November.

[116] Finally, on 6 February 2012, the court spoke, overturning the Spanish federation's decision to clear Contador and assessing the rider a backdated two-year ban, from the date of his adverse test at the 2010 Tour de France.

[120] His successor Michele Acquarone was also upset by the decision, believing that damage had been done to the Giro and noting that RCS Sport would need to commission a new trophy to award to Scarponi.

[67] Other awards included the Combativity classification, which was a compilation of points gained for position on crossing intermediate sprints, mountain passes and stage finishes.