In its 35-year historical past, the Giro d’Italia Women has gone by means of many guises and eras, from excessive factors to low factors, varied names and organisational adjustments, there hasn’t all the time been an excessive amount of consistency for the premier stage race on the ladies’s calendar. Things are altering as soon as once more for 2024, with the race coming underneath management of males’s Giro organisers RCS for the primary time, in what guarantees to be a brand new period for the occasion.
Throughout its historical past, nevertheless, one factor has remained attribute of the ladies’s Giro: the inclusion of onerous, excessive, or in any other case iconic climbs. With the richness of well-known biking climbs in Italy, a few of the sport’s hardest ascents have come to outline the ladies’s corsa rosa.
Like the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift and its predecessors, the Giro route has assorted in problem over time. Earlier editions took in climbs and levels akin to the lads’s race, with some memorable massive days within the mountains, however latest years have seen the race barely shrink in stature, and with that, fewer visits to the massive climbs. However, there’s all the time at the very least one main climb on the Giro route, and the Italian race has actually by no means shied away from troublesome levels.
This yr, the climb that has that flagship standing on the route is the Monte Blockhaus, which comes on stage 7, the race’s Queen stage. The riders will virtually do a double ascent of Blockhaus that day, tackling the Passo Lanciano – a climb that simply cuts off the ultimate few kilometres of the Blockhaus – proper earlier than they tackle the complete ascent. At 17.7km in size with a median gradient of seven.8%, this can be a powerful mountain, and the double effort will make it even tougher and extra spectacular.
The Blockhaus is a blockbuster climb, and a becoming place for the brand new, RCS-organised period of the Giro d’Italia Women to begin, but it surely’s additionally the most recent level in a protracted custom of some actually main Italian climbs being included within the girls’s race. From the fearsome Monte Zoncolan to the Passo dello Stelvio, listed here are a few of the key mountains within the race’s historical past.
Blockhaus
Length: 17.7km at 7.8%
Altitude: 1,663m
Location: Abruzzo
Last go to: 2024 shall be its first look within the girls’s race
The Blockhaus has change into a preferred inclusion within the males’s Giro d’Italia, and so it’s maybe not stunning that new organisers RCS have picked the climb to be the headline ascent of this yr’s Giro Women route.
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When it involves Italian climbs, this isn’t one of many prime family names – just like the Stelvio or the Zoncolan – but it surely’s a troublesome problem that’s forging its place as a key Giro climb. In this yr’s race, the Blockhaus would be the Cima Alfonsina Strada – the ladies’s equal of the Cima Coppi for the very best level within the race.
The climb marks a brand new chapter for the ladies’s race. The gradients on Blockhaus aren’t excessive, however it’s lengthy, virtually so long as the Col du Tourmalet that was included in final yr’s Tour de France Femmes, so it’s a severe mountain and one that may virtually actually resolve the winner of this yr’s Giro Women. If the primary go to goes effectively, anticipate this to open up the doorways for RCS together with extra well-known climbs within the girls’s route.
Other key climbs within the 2024 Giro d’Italia Women:
- Stage 3: La Collina (7.8km at 5.9%) – the race’s first summit end
- Stage 4: San Marino (5.4km at 6.9%) – the opener of a punchy finale that might shake up the GC
- Stage 7: Passo Lanciano (12.4km at 8.3%) – a troublesome precursor to Blockhaus
- Stage 8: Forca di Penne (21.1k at 3.3%) – mild however the longest climb of the race
- Stage 8: Castel del Monte (13.4km at 4.7%) – the second highest level within the race after Blockhaus
Monte Zoncolan
Length: 10.1km at 11.4%
Altitude: 1,730m
Location: Friuli-Venezia
Last go to: 2018, stage 9 received solo by Annemiek van Vleuten within the pink jersey
The Zoncolan is likely one of the most fearsome and demanding climbs in all of Italy, however that hasn’t deterred Giro organisers over time, with the Friulian climb that includes twice within the race’s historical past.
It’s a uncommon inclusion even within the males’s race – solely included there seven instances – however has change into iconic due to its punishingly steep gradients. The 10km ascent has a median gradient of 11.4%, however loads of sections attain practically 20%, and it’s a very brutal effort.
It’s maybe no shock, then, that the final winner on the Zoncolan was one of many peloton’s best-ever climbers, Annemiek van Vleuten. She attacked midway up the climb to solo to victory, 40 seconds forward of Ashleigh Moolman Pasio, for a win that may go down as one among her most memorable.
The first go to was in 1997, and that stage was received by Fabiana Luperini, the five-time winner of the Giro whose identify crops up because the winner on lots of the race’s most iconic climbs, and he or she turned the primary girl to beat the Zoncolan with a solo win that solidified her total victory.
Like Alpe d’Huez or Mont Ventoux within the Tour, the Zoncolan is a flagship climb of the Giro, and its two appearances maintain a particular place within the race’s historical past.
Mortirolo
Length: 12.2km at 10.8%
Altitude: 1,890m
Location: Lombardy
Last go to: 2016, received by Mara Abbott in a protracted solo transfer
Like the Zoncolan, the Mortirolo is a climb synonymous with the Giro, and has typically been the most important climb and the Cima Coppi within the girls’s race.
Its final inclusion got here in 2016, the place the peloton tackled the 12km ascent in the midst of a brief stage, which noticed Mara Abbott assault and go on a protracted solo mission to the end to take the pink jersey.
Marianne Vos, within the days when she was a GC rider, has additionally received a Mortirolo stage, taking the honours in 2011 with an assault over the climb earlier than descending to victory in Grosotto. She dominated that version of the Giro, profitable no fewer than 5 levels and the general.
Prato Nevoso
Length: 13.1km at 7.2%
Altitude: 1,607m
Location: Piemonte
Last go to: 2021, stage 2 received by Anna van der Breggen
Unlike the earlier climbs, Prato Nevoso just isn’t a climb that’s synonymous with Italian biking, but it surely holds a particular place within the latest historical past of the ladies’s Giro as one of many hardest climbs amongst some editions that didn’t all the time embody essentially the most well-known ascent.
In 2021, the climb cropped up as one of many earliest summit finishes we’ve seen within the race, and noticed Anna van der Breggen experience to a dominant solo victory, placing 1:22 into her closest rival and virtually sealing her fourth total victory after simply two levels.
That would show to be her ultimate highway victory (she additionally received the time trial in that race) earlier than retiring and a reminder to the world that she was nonetheless the world’s greatest rider. With the Dutchwoman returning to racing in 2025, this may increasingly not be her ultimate highway victory, however the powerful climb will stay memorable for her win.
Monte Serra
Length: 12.2km at 7.1%
Altitude: 873m
Location: Tuscany
Last go to: 2009, stage 4 received by Mara Abbott in a mountain-top dash towards Emma Pooley
Despite the Giro’s 35-year historical past, there are surprisingly few main climbs which have featured within the race greater than as soon as, however essentially the most repeatedly visited climb within the corsa rosa is the Monte Serra.
Giro levels have completed atop this climb 3 times, in 1998, 2008 and 2009, and it has been the location of victories for a few of the most well-known riders in Giro historical past.
In 1998, Fabiana Luperini received on her technique to her fourth total victory, and fittingly – or remarkably, to these not acquainted with Luperini’s longevity – she repeated that feat ten years later in 2008, profitable on Monte Serra earlier than occurring to win the race for a report fifth time. Luperini has received on a lot of the key climbs of the Giro, such was her dominance when she was racing, however the twin wins listed here are notably memorable.
The final go to to Monte Serra got here in 2009, when stage 4 noticed the peloton tackle the climb twice in a row. A 23-year-old Mara Abbott took the victory, her first of seven within the Giro, outsprinting Emma Pooley on the road after a gruelling day. She settled for second total that yr, however got here again in 2010 to win the race, after first proving herself within the Italian race on the Monte Serra.
Passo dello Stelvio
Length: 24.1km at 7.6%
Altitude: 2,757m
Location: South Tyrol
Last go to: 2010, stage 9 received by solo Mara Abbott
When it involves trying on the winners atop the Giro d’Italia’s key climbs, two names come up many times: Fabiana Luperini and Mara Abbott. In their time, each have been dominant climbers and relished the inclusion of lengthy, troublesome climbs, including a few of biking’s most well-known mountains to their palmarès in the best way {that a} rider like Demi Vollering is hoping to do within the fashionable period.
It’s not stunning, then, that when the Giro visited the Passo dello Stelvio in 2010, it was Mara Abbott who took the win atop one of many hardest and most well-known climbs in Italy. The 24km ascent was utilized in full on the race’s Queen stage, and noticed the race blow aside behind Abbott, who was already main the race. She completed 27 seconds forward of perennial rival Emma Pooley with an assault within the ultimate 3km and the time gaps, although important, weren’t monumental, proving simply how carefully matched the climbing degree within the peloton was on the time, even on one of many sport’s hardest climbs.
Climbs just like the Stelvio, Zoncolan and this yr’s Blockhaus, alongside the Tour de France Femmes’ visits to the Tourmalet and Alpe d’Huez, show that these massive climbs have an necessary function in girls’s Grand Tours, and their appearances will certainly solely change into extra frequent as these races proceed to develop.