How many women have raced in the Giro d'Italia?

On 10 May 1924 a girl from Bologna, Alfonsa Rosa Maria Morini, showed up at the start of the Giro d'Italia. She was 23, and the first woman to participate in the race: it resulted in an outrage, a controversy flared up but Alfonsa did not care, she was used to it. She became Alfonsina Strada at 14, when he married Luigi Strada, a mechanic from Milan. “Do you want to race on a bicycle?” her mother had said, “go ahead, but first get married and leave home”. She did just that, the wedding gift was a bicycle. Upon arrival of the last leg, on June 1, 1924, after 3,613 kilometres throughout Italy, the woman wearing number 72 was one of the 30 cyclists who managed to cross the finishing line. Sixty others had already given up. Alfonsina was greeted triumphantly, but this is not enough to change history: no other woman ever participated in the Giro d’Italia again.

For Enel, gender, diversity and inclusion issues have always been a priority. The financial information multinational company Thompson Reuters included our Group in the ranking of the 100 leading global companies in the Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) index. In addition, Enel’s projects such as Girls in motion in 2017, and programmes such as Girls in ICT 2016 and Girls Go Tech 2016, promote the entry of girls in scientific and technical universities and encourages them to join professions traditionally belonging to men. The aim is an increasingly pink future.