Wiebes flies to a second Giro d’Italia Women win on stage 5 after crosswind chaos
Marlen Reusser still leads overall, but changes affect the GC after the peloton splits in cross winds on the flattest stage of the entire Giro
Lorena Wiebes sprinted to take her second victory of this year’s Giro d’Italia Women on stage 5 after crosswinds affected the flattest stage of the race’s eight.
The SD Worx-Protime rider took a fifth career win at the Italian Grand Tour, finishing ahead of Marianne Vos (Visma | Lease a Bike), looking for a 33rd stage win, with Liane Lippert (Movistar) taking third.
Working for Italian champion Elisa Longo Borghini, UAE Team ADQ split the race in crosswinds with 55km of the stage remaining, causing huge time gaps affecting the GC standings. Eventually, the leading group of 20 women finished 1:42 ahead of the peloton, with Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) and Katrine Aalerud (Uno-X Mobility) the main beneficiaries, moving into third and fourth place overall, respectively.
The leading group contained five UAE riders, while SD Worx managed to get six of their seven women in there, so control on the ride to the closing circuits was down to those two squads. UAE Team ADQ led for much of the final 14.2km lap around the finish town of Monselice, seeking to ensure maximum general classification advantage for Elisa Longo Borghini, while SDWorx came to the front in the final 1500m.
The Dutch team’s lead-out worked perfectly, with Barbara Guarischi taking the penultimate turn before world champion Lotte Kopecky launched Wiebes in the final 150m.
It was Wiebes’s 106th career victory. In her post-race interview, she was asked if there is anyone who can challenge her.
“For now not I think,” Wiebes said. “But the whole team did really good, first we had the breakaway and we controlled it with the team, and then together with Team UAE we put it in the gutter and the peloton broke. We had a lot of girls in there but we had to finish it.”
How it unfolded
The flattest day of the entire Giro was always like to produce a bunch sprint. And with SD Worx-Protime’s GC hopes up in smoke after Wednesday’s mountain top finish, surely the Dutch team would be looking to Lorena Wiebes for a second sprint win.
Starting in Mirano, not far from Venice, the 120km stage headed south-west to the town of Monselice, passing through the finish line before riding two laps of a 14.2km circuit. This lap contained the stage’s only climbing, twice taking the riders to only 44m above sea level.
A series of attacks punctuated the opening kilometres, before, with 110km to go, five women emerged off the front. Franziska Brauße (Ceratizit Pro Cycling), Katia Ragusa (Human Powered Health), Asia Zontone (Isolmat-Premac-Vittoria) and two riders from Top Girls Fassa Bortolo, Alicia Bulegato and Sara Luccon passed the intermediate sprint with 82km to go, their lead well over three minutes.
With 63km remaining, one of the pre-stage favourites, Marianne Vos (Visma | Lease a Bike) was caught in a large pile up, though she was soon chasing to get back to the SD Worx led bunch. Indeed, the Dutch team controlled the breakaway the unit, with 55km to go, they joined with Elisa Longo Borghini’s UAE Team ADQ to put the race in the gutter in a stretch of crosswinds.
This split the race, creating an attacking group of around 20 women, including Longo Borghini and four team mates, race leader Marlen Reusser (Movistar) and six of the seven SD Worx riders, including Wiebes. Not only did this move bring the breakaway back, it also began to affect the general classification.
As the front of the race crossed the finish line for the two final laps, the leading group had 1.15 on the chasers who included winner of the day four mountain stage, Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance-Soudal), who started the day third overall, and Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon//SRAM-zondacrypto) in fourth overall, along with many other riders in the overall top 10.
Though the gap dropped briefly on the lap, when the leaders entered the final circuit their advantage was out to 1.30 and the race set.
Friday’s sixth stage takes the peloton south, along the coast and back into the hills, with a 145km race between Bellaria Igea Marina and Terre Roveresche. There will be three classified climbs, an unclassified ascent inside the final 15km and 2,350m of vertical ascent. Expect a tough day.
