Elisa Longo Borghini skilled within the Paris rain one final time on Friday earlier than representing Italy within the Olympic Games ladies’s particular person time trial on Saturday.
The current Giro d’Italia winner already has two bronze medals received within the street races in Rio in 2016 and Tokyo 2021 however would love one other. She completed fifth within the Rio time trial and tenth on the hillier Tokyo course and can then lead the Italian crew within the street race subsequent weekend, alongside Elisa Balsamo, Silvia Persico and Elisa Cecchini.
“I’d be proud of one other medal. Whatever the color of an Olympic medal, it is value gold,” Longo Borghini advised the Italian web site Tuttobiciweb.
“There’s nothing like climbing on the rostrum on the Olympics to obtain a medal. You really feel such as you’ve actually achieved one thing.”
Longo Borghini has stepped up a stage in 2024. She received the Tour of Flanders throughout an excellent spring marketing campaign after which led the Giro d’Italia Women from begin to end. She received the opening Giro d’Italia time trial by a second forward of Australia’s Grace Brown, with Brodie Chapman third.
Brown is likely one of the favourites within the 35-rider ladies’s time trial in Paris, and begins subsequent to final, at 15:19 CET on Saturday, simply 90 seconds forward of final rider and gold medal favorite Chloé Dygert of the USA.
Longo Borghini begins at 15:10 CET, 90 seconds after Lotte Kopecky of Belgium. Demi Vollering is off at 15:15. Ellen van Dijk of the Netherlands is off just a little earlier, at 15:00 CET. The ladies cowl the identical 32.4km course as the lads, with the route heading out of central Paris to the Bois de Vincennes park for a collection of loops earlier than a quick return to town centre and a end on the beautiful Pont Alexandre III.
“A medal within the time trial will probably be robust to win however I’ve by no means been in such good kind. I felt good after profitable the Giro and have rested up and achieved pace work earlier than coming to Paris,” Longo Borghini defined.
“I’ve labored exhausting on my time trailing and wish to enhance much more. That’s one purpose why I’m right here.”
If Longo Borghini would not win a medal, she hopes her Lidl-Trek teammates can.
“I’d love for Ellen to win,” she mentioned of Van Dijk.
“She gave start to a boy in October and it’s wonderful that she’s again racing after just some months. She’s a task mannequin. I hope she’s recovered as a lot as potential from her damage. She misplaced some muscle due to it however I understand how exhausting she’s labored to make a comeback.”