which he held all the way to race's finish. Fiorenzo Magni won the 1948 Giro d'Italia by a margin of eleven seconds — the smallest margin of victory in the history of the race — over Ezio Cecchi. Magni gained significant time after being a part of a successful breakaway in the race's ninth day of racing. Magni's lead over race favorites Coppi and Bartali was near thirteen minutes. Cecchi briefly gained the lead of the race for two stages; however, Magni took the lead after the seventeenth stage which saw riders cross the Pordoi Pass. Coppi and his team suspected that Magni received help from the spectators, which the organizers gave Magni a two-minute penalty for. The penalty to Magni wasn't enough to prevent him from winning the race, but he did so by the slimmest of margins. After the ninth stage of the 1949 edition, Fausto Coppi was close to ten minutes behind the race leader Adolfo Leoni in the general classification. Coppi gained over nine minutes on Leoni during the tenth stage, but Leoni remained in the lead. The race's seventeenth leg went over five major climbs before finishing in Pinerolo. Coppi attacked off the start and was the first over all the climbs and the finish line in Pinerolo; his efforts gained him the race lead and a sizable lead over his rival Gino Bartali. Coppi went on to win the Giro, his third such victory. Coppi came into the 1950 Giro d'Italia as the favorite to win the general classification; however, bad luck struck as he broke his pelvis in the race's ninth day. In the eighth leg, Hugo Koblet attacked on the Pian delle Fugazze to win the stage and gain the overall lead. Koblet kept the lead all the way to the Giro's finish in Milan and in doing so he became the first foreigner to win the Giro d'Italia. In addition, Koblet won the mountains classification. Almost three years after his first Giro d'Italia victory, Fiorenzo Magni won the Giro d'Italia again. Magni's major rival in the 1951 edition was the Belgian Rik Van Steenbergen who performed very well in the Dolomites. Magni took the lead after descending successfully down the final climb of the eighteenth stage and then protecting the lead all way to the race's finish. The 1952 Giro d'Italia featured one of the first deaths by a rider in