Having completed stage 4 of the Giro d’Italia Women 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.
As 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 group needed to work exhausting 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 received 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 superb as we speak. There was a breakaway going originally, after which one other huge group going after the San Marino climb the place we had Brodie [Chapman]. But we stopped her as a result of we wished her to manage. We knew Uttrup Ludwig was in competition for the maglia rosa, and we wished to only have it below management,” Longo Borghini stated.
“We knew Kopecky was the principle 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 a superb day general.”
Kopecky had stated earlier than the Giro that she was focusing extra on stage victories than on the final classification, however the stage didn’t develop the way in which she had hoped.
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“It was a scorching day, and it was a fairly large group out, so I knew it was exhausting to go for a stage win. But it was a pleasant closing climb in the long run, and I simply gave it a go,” she stated.
Kopecky was profitable inasmuch as Longo Borghini was the one rider in a position to 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, driving into the day’s essential chase group and, at one level, was within the digital maglia rosa throughout the stage.
She joined a gaggle 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 known as again to assist in the chase, this hole was decreased to below a minute on the end, however Uttrup Ludwig nonetheless moved up six spots within the GC and is now in third general at 38 seconds.
Kim Le Court (AG Insurance-Soudal) additionally made a giant soar within the GC, transferring from eleventh to fifth general. The Mauritian rider is now solely 51 seconds behind Longo Borghini, and the way during 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 she or he did that. Then she needed to watch for Kim, who was speculated to assault on the second climb,” Le Court’s sport director Jolien D’hoore defined a group technique that performed out completely.
“Kim joined Justine, and from that second, that they had just one aim: to realize seconds within the basic classification. They executed it completely. It was actually a group effort as we speak; everybody performed their half,”
Juliette Labous (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) misplaced 4 seconds to Longo Borghini and Kopecky on the ending climb. However, the French climber took a bottle from her group automobile within the final 20km. Although 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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