Balsamo completes hat-trick of stages to stay in pink at Giro Women

Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek) retains the maglia rosa of the Giro d’Italia Women after she powered to victory on stage 3 in Buja. She landed her third victory in as many stages with a perfectly timed effort on the drag to the line in Buja. 

Lily Williams (Human Powered Health) tried to spring a surprise by opening her sprint from distance, but she was beaten into second place by Balsamo. Femke Gerritse (SD Worx) took third ahead of Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ) and Silvia Persico (UAE Team ADQ).

The finale was marked by a show of aggression from Demi Vollering on the climb of Montenars, where she set her FDJ United-Suez teammate Célia Gery to work to split the bunch before launching an acceleration of her own near the summit with 20km to go.

Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) took over near the top, and the Dutchwoman was joined at the front by Vollering, Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ), Marlen Reusser (Movistar), Niamh Fisher-Black, Isabella Holmgren (Lidl-Trek) and Femke de Vries (Visma).

The presence of two Lidl-Trek riders perhaps took some of the impetus from the move, given that the maglia rosa, Balsamo was chasing back on, and the race duly came back together with 14km to go.

Sigrid Ytterhus Haugset (Uno-X Mobility) launched a late attempt to try to win the stage by punching clear alone with 6km to go. The Norwegian opened a gap of 8 seconds and battled gamely to stay clear, but she would eventually be swept up with 300m to go. The fast finishers would not be denied on the gently rising climb to the line in Buja.

The Giro’s third stage brought the race from the Veneto coastline into Friuli, which made for a flat start with gradually more rugged terrain as the day drew on. The early break formed inside the first 10km, with Marta Pavesi (Top Girls Fassa Bortolo), Cristina Tonetti (Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi), Alison Jackson (St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93), Eleonora Deotto (Mendelspeck E-Work) and Nienke Veenhoven (Visma | Lease a Bike) forging clear.

That sextet quickly established a lead of three minutes, and that margin remained more or less intact until the race started to hit more rolling terrain in the final 70km, with Lidl-Trek setting the tempo in the peloton.

The break fragmented over the top of the category 4 ascent of Moruzzo, with Tonetti, Jackson and Pavesi pressing clear. Behind, Canyon-SRAM’s forcing in the bunch saw the gap start to contract, and the three escapees’ buffer was down to just 45 seconds as they hit the final 50km.

Jackson, Tonetti and Pavesi had 35 seconds in hand by the time they crossed the final line in Buja for the first time with 43km to go, where the roadside spectators included hometown hero Jonathan Milan, fresh from his victory on the final stage of the men’s Giro in Roma on Sunday night. 

That sight of the finish line inspired a further injection of pace in the bunch on the unclassified undulations that followed, but the trio of escapees fended off the chase a little longer before they were finally reeled in with 28km to go, just ahead of the climb to Montenars.

Once the climb began, Demi Vollering’s FDJ United-Suez squad were prominent in setting the pace on her behalf, with Célia Gery’s effort creating gaps in the bunch. Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) took over nearer the top before Vollering put in a rasping effort on the steepest section.

Only Longo Borghini, Reusser, Van der Breggen, De Vries and the Lidl-Trek duo of Fisher Black and Holmgren could come with her, while the bunch was splintered into shards behind them.

There wasn’t immediate cohesion in that front group, however, and that allowed some riders to bridge back up on the descent. The pink jersey Balsamo initially trailed by close to 50 seconds, but she was among a bigger group to make it back to the front after the descent, setting the scene for a reduced bunch sprint in Buja.