Stunning Gigante wins second Giro d’Italia stage while Longo Borghini moves into pink
The Australian shone on the queen stage to take another victory at this year's Giro d'Italia Women, in arguably more impressive fashion.
Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance-Soudal) took a second mountain top stage win at stage seven of the Giro d’Italia on Saturday, proving herself as one of the best female climbers in the world.
While the Australian was victorious on the brutal slopes of Monte Nerone, the day belonged to Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ), who moved into the overall lead with a daring attack at the bottom of the day’s final climb.
The Italian started the day 16 seconds behind Marlen Reusser (Movistar) but soon built a lead of 50 seconds. That came down slightly when Gigante attacked from behind, but she ground on, up the mountain, to take second on the day, with Isabella Holmgren (Lidl-Trek) third.
Longo Borghini will start Sunday’s final stage in the maglia rosa, 22 seconds ahead of Reusser, with 1.11 on Gigante.
The Italian’s attack was almost by accident, her and UAE Team ADQ team mate Silvia Persico taking time on the descent into the bottom of the Monte Neroni. Though they had Reusser’s teammate on their wheel, they persisted with the effort, and Longo Borghini dropped the German, as Persico pulled off.
With Movistar out of riders to support Reusser’s pursuit of Longo Borghini, Gigante attacked the group, quickly bridging to Longo Borghini before dropping her as the gradients became most difficult.
“I saw on my Garmin there was a little flat section and then it went steep again.” Gigante said. “I knew she was pretty tired after being out there a while, I felt good so I went for it, although I was dying a thousand deaths in the last kilometre because it was so steep.
“I’m so grateful to my team, that was so special. I knew the whole team was 100% committed to the plan and that was to get this but on the GC and I think I’ve moved up onto the podium, obviously it will be hard to defend that tomorrow but we will try, and then the stage win is just an extra bonus.”
How it unfolded
The queen stage, and after a tough week, an even tougher day, where the race would be decided. With not far off 4,000m of vertical ascent, Saturday’s stage was also the longest of the race, travelling 150km between Fermignano and Monte Nerone, with two second and one third category climb before the final first category ascent.
A flurry of early attacks failed to build any kind of advantage, and it was up to Mijntje Geurts (Visma | Lease a Bike) to go alone, the Dutch woman attacking with 15km done and soon gaining a lead approaching four minutes.
On the day’s second classified climb, Passo la Croce, Usoa Ostolaza (Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi) set off in search of mountains classification points, with Lidl-Trek’s Shirin van Anrooij up the road with her after finishing third on stage six.
It took a while, but Guerts was eventually caught by the chasers on La Forchetta, the stage’s penultimate climb, 56km from the line. There, Ostolaza took maximum points, moving into the virtual maglia azzura, while, with the peloton almost six minutes down, Van Anrooij became the virtual maglia rosa. However, once the peloton were onto the descent, with Célia Gery (FDJ-SUEZ) in the gap, that deficit began to drop.
Working for Sarah Gigante, the AG Insurance-Soudal team came to the front, reducing the leaders’ advantage and shredding the bunch on an unclassified climb 30km from the finish on Monte Nerone. Their move was a perfect defensive one for Gigante, who has struggled on the descents.
On the same descent, Van Anrooij dropped the rest of the breakaway, forging on towards the bottom of the final climb alone, while behind, UAE Team ADQ lifted the pace on the descent, Silvia Persico and Elisa Longo Borghini, who started the day second overall, got a gap. This move not only put Gigante under pressure, but also GC leader Marlen Reusser, whose Movistar teammate Liane Lippert sat on the Italians’ wheel.
As the climb began, Italian champion Longo Borghini led the peloton by 30 seconds, while Van Anrooij was looking relatively comfortable three minutes up the road. Though they did some work to chase, it was Gigante’s AG Insurance team who did the chasing. With 20km of the day remaining, Persico was done, pulling off the front, leaving her teammate to attack, quickly dropping Lippert while leading Reusser’s peloton by 38 seconds.
The Italian champion had begun the day with just a 16-second deficit on Reusser, and Longo Borghini’s move began to change the complexion of the race as she took over the virtual maglia rosa.
With five kilometres remaining, while Van Anrooij’s day was almost over, Reusser was out of teammates and did not follow when Gigante attacked. The Australian was soon passed Van Anrooij, catching Longo Borghini with three kilometres left, attacking the Italian a few hundred metres later.
Sunday’s final stage sees the race return to the Imola race track, where Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) won double rainbow jerseys in both road and time trial, way back in 2020. The stage takes the race from Forlì to the Imola track, where they’ll ride three laps of a hilly circuit.
