Having completed stage 4 of the Giro d’Italia Girls in eighth place, with the primary seven locations all taken by the breakaway, Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek) as soon as once more stepped onto the rostrum to obtain the maglia rosa for the general chief.
Because the Italian Champion maintains a maintain on the final classification, the race for the rostrum behind her is starting to warmth up.
Longo Borghini and her crew needed to work onerous to defend the maglia rosa, lowering a harmful hole to Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (FDJ-Suez), who was the digital chief for some time within the group chasing the breakaway on stage 4 gained by Clara Emond (EF-Oatly-Cannondale).
From the peloton, Longo Borghini then adopted an assault by runner-up on GC Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) on the ending climb into Urbino. She outsprinted the World Champion, placing down a marker that she is on this Giro to win it.
“I felt excellent in the present day. There was a breakaway going initially, after which one other huge group going after the San Marino climb the place we had Brodie [Chapman]. However we stopped her as a result of we wished her to regulate. We knew Uttrup Ludwig was in rivalry for the maglia rosa, and we wished to simply have it beneath management,” Longo Borghini mentioned.
“We knew Kopecky was the primary rival for the day, so we didn’t need her to get time gaps, however I additionally managed to beat her within the dash. It was an excellent day total.”
Kopecky had mentioned earlier than the Giro that she was focusing extra on stage victories than on the final classification, however the stage didn’t develop the best way she had hoped.
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“It was a scorching day, and it was a reasonably large group out, so I knew it was onerous to go for a stage win. However it was a pleasant closing climb ultimately, and I simply gave it a go,” she mentioned.
Kopecky was profitable inasmuch as Longo Borghini was the one rider capable of maintain her wheel – however she could not achieve any time on the maglia rosa and stays 13 seconds behind in GC.
Uttrup Ludwig gained probably the most on the 134km stage from Imola to Urbino, using into the day’s fundamental chase group and, at one level, was within the digital maglia rosa through the stage.
She joined a bunch of 15 that had gone clear on the San Marino climb and was two minutes forward of the peloton for some time. With Lidl-Trek’s Brodie Chapman referred to as again to assist in the chase, this hole was diminished to beneath a minute on the end, however Uttrup Ludwig nonetheless moved up six spots within the GC and is now in third total at 38 seconds.
Kim Le Court docket (AG Insurance coverage-Soudal) additionally made an enormous bounce within the GC, transferring from eleventh to fifth total. The Mauritian rider is now solely 51 seconds behind Longo Borghini, and the way through which she achieved her time achieve was very spectacular, utilizing the assistance of her teammate Justine Ghekiere to bridge a two-minute hole from the peloton to the chase group behind the eventual stage winner Emond.
“Our plan was for Justine to be on the entrance on the primary climb to take factors for the mountain jersey, and he or she did that. Then she needed to look forward to Kim, who was speculated to assault on the second climb,” Le Court docket’s sport director Jolien D’hoore defined a crew technique that performed out completely.
“Kim joined Justine, and from that second, that they had just one objective: to realize seconds within the basic classification. They executed it completely. It was actually a crew effort in the present day; everybody performed their half,”
Juliette Labous (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) misplaced 4 seconds to Longo Borghini and Kopecky on the ending climb. Nonetheless, the French climber took a bottle from her crew automotive within the final 20km. Though she was not the one rider seen doing this on the race footage, Labous was the one one handed a 20-second time penalty.
Labous has now slipped one spot within the GC from third to fourth, placing her 49 seconds down on Longo Borghini because the race heads into stage 5 on Thursday.
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