The 2004 Giro d'Italia was the 87th edition of the Giro d'Italia, one of cycling's Grand Tours. The Giro began in Genoa with a 6.9 km (4.3 mi) prologue. The race came to a close with a 133 km (82.6 mi) mass-start road stage that stretched from Clusone to Milan. Nineteen teams entered the race that was won by the Italian Damiano Cunego of the Saeco Macchine per Caffè team. Second and third were the Ukrainian Serhiy Honchar and Italian Gilberto Simoni.
In the race's other classifications, Gerolsteiner rider Fabian Wegmann won the mountains classification, Raffaele Illiano of the Colombia-Selle Italia team won the intergiro classification, and Fassa Bortolo rider Alessandro Petacchi won the points classification. In addition to the points classification, Petacchi also won the secondary most combative and Azzurri d'Italia classifications. Saeco Macchine per Caffè finished as the winners of the Trofeo Fast Team classification, ranking each of the nineteen teams contesting the race by lowest cumulative time. The other team classification, the Trofeo Super Team classification, where the teams' riders are awarded points for placing within the top twenty in each stage and the points are then totaled for each team was won by Alessio-Bianchi.