Anna Van der Breggen Extends Lead In Giro d’Italia Donne
Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio remains in second in women-cycling's premier race, behind teammate van der Breggen, with six stages to ride in Italy.
Stage 4: Van der Breggen extends her lead in ITT
Stage 4’s 11km individual time trial, traveling from Formazza Loc. Fondovalle to Riale Di Formazza Cascate Del Toce, was largely made of a brutal climb taking riders an average of around 30 minutes to complete. The stage was eventually won by Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx), followed by teammate Demi Vollering (SD Worx) and Grace Brown (Team BikeExchange) after hours of individual racing (and extreme pain for the athletes) finished at the top of a mountain.
In the general classification, Van der Breggen now enjoys a lead of 2:51 over her teammate Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio and 3:03 over Vollering. Lizzie Deignan (Trek-Segafredo) in fourth place is 5:53 behind.
Gear Choices
Many racers opted to ride standard road bikes rather than time-trial bikes in order to take advantage of a more comfortable climbing position and lighter gear. Some opted for a combination of climb-friendly light wheels and aero helmets, and some went for the full aero advantage of a time-trial bike. The weather was mild—hovering around 63 degrees—and unlike Stage 3, riders weren’t dealing with rainstorms as they ascended the callous climb with over 500 meters of elevation.
Grace Brown (Team BikeExchange) opted for a full time-trial bike setup and was one of the favourites to win this short, painful stage. For most of the race, she sat on top of the leaderboard with a time of 26:14 as most of the top riders finished in the 28 to 30-minute range.
End-of-race shakeups
However, since riders line up in reverse order of general classification, there are often end-of-race shakeups, and this race was no different. Demi Vollering (Team SD Worx) took over the lead as the final riders finished up the stage, beating Brown’s time by 10 seconds at 26:03.
Vollering’s lead didn’t last long though: Her teammate, current race leader Anna van der Breggen smashed all the times by more than a minute, lighting up the course in a blistering 24:57.
“It was a nice time trial and a good practice for the upcoming Olympics,” said Van der Breggen. “We do not have a lot of time trials like this, actually, we do not have any at all, so it was good to have. I am in a luxury position to have the girls around me; it is nice for my last Giro Donne to go like this, but we are still only halfway, and you still need good legs. I think we will have to fight for it on the flat stages and the hard climbing stages coming up.”
With six stages left to go, riders are already feeling the intensity of the race. As American Krista Doebel-Hickok of Rally Cycling tweeted, “Wake me up when it’s time for stage whatever of the #GiroDonne… Yes, we are already on stage whatever.”
Some riders have also taken to Twitter to comment on the paltry amount of live coverage of the race, with FDJ’s Brodie Chapman tweeting, “A police helicopter was hovering above our race today for some time, and I felt like I was in a grownup race with live TV. Perhaps throw a cameraman up in the chop with the cop next time?”
Tomorrow, riders head to Milan for the start of a 120km flat stage.
How to watch
Most days, the live stream begins between 14h00 and 15hoo on GCN Race Pass . Cycling fans worldwide can help make a case for bringing better coverage to women’s racing by tuning in each day to catch the end of the race. Highlights and rider interviews can also be found on YouTube.
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