The Impact of Pink: The Giro d'Italia and Far-Right Voting in Italy

This paper examines the connection between sports and politics, focusing on therelationship between Giro d’Italia participation among Italian provinces and far-right electionoutcomes. Using data from the 2018 and 2022 Camera dei Deputati elections with Giroparticipation data, a statistical analysis and regression were run to see the impacts that hosting astage of the Giro d’Italia has on Italian provinces. In this case, for every year that a provinceparticipates in the Giro d’Italia, the right and far-right percentage points went down by 0.92points based on these elections. The main goal of this paper is to demonstrate that sports andpolitics cannot be separated, which is supported by the relationship between the Giro d’Italia andthe far-right election outcomes. This is especially relevant when it comes to large sporting eventsthat bring areas out of the periphery through international exposure and a large economic impactfrom hosting.