Giro d'Italia 2025 Giro d'Italia Women, July 6-13

Page 4 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
They could have added the hill from the EC circuit in Trento, but I guess they didn't want to block off too many roads in the city.

Reusser finishing far back means we could get a battle for Ciclamino, but it will also depend on what Henderson is capable of. It is the only jersey that Longo Borghini has never won, which obviously makes a lot of sense, but this year she could possibly have a chance. However, if she follows the path she's currently on it won't happen until 2040 (she won white in 2012, the QOM in 2016 and of course the GC in 2024).
 
Stage 4: Castello Tesino - Pianezze (Valdobbiadene), 142 km

Official start at 10:35
Expected finish at around 14:30
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After a day of sprinting (and crashing) it's time for another uphill finish, but this one could create some substantial gaps between the very best riders.

This stage probably won't be decided until the MTF, but unlike the Aprica stage, there are more than just one climb to de dealt with. The parcours for the first 130 km resembles a half decent Tirreno-Adriatico stage with multiple shorter hills that are sometimes fairly steep. The route also shares some of its roads with stage 17 from the 2014 men's Giro, won by legendary maverick Stefano Pirazzi, Bardiani's third stage win during the race, but the final on that day was ridden from the opposite direction and ended with a flat finish in Vittorio Veneto.

The first categorised climb, Cugnan-Vena d'Oro, begins after 60 km, but there are a selection of bumps and lumps beforehand.

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12 km after the top of it, the road goes up again for 2 km.

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The next challenge is the very steep Muro di Ca' del Poggio, which we've seen used mutliple times in the men's Giro. Here it is once again placed far from the finish (40 km to be exact), but it could still create some carnage, especially in a breakaway with climbers of different levels.

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The next 20-ish km is the flattest part of the whole stage, until they reach the climb to Santa Stefano with 18 km left.

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After a short descent to Valdobbiadene, the wheat will soon get separated from the chaff during the last 11 km towards Pianezze, which is situated 420m (altitude-wise) below the end of the paved road up Monte Cesen. The climb is fairly consistent with gradients between 7 and 8%, but there are shorter sections above 10%. The race won't necessarily be won here, but it sure can be lost.

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While the Aprica finish made you think back 10 years, we'll have to go back 30 years to understand the history behind this one.

In 1993 a young, small Italian climber by the name of Fabiana Luperini had first emerged on to the scene, riding for the Sanson team, led by former rider Marino Amadori, who would later join Mercantone Uno for the last year's of Marco Pantani's career. Luperini had missed the Giro due the pressure of studying for high school exams, but at the second edition of the Tour Cycliste Féminin, she had showed what she was made of.

She was unable to match Leontien van Moorsel who won 5 of the 14 stages, but on the MTFs at Luz Ardiden and Vaujany she had been among the strongest riders. Before the final stage to Alpe d'Huez, she was still fighting for a podium. But on the way to Le Bourg-d'Oisans she took a bite of an apple, the forbidden fruit, which her stomach couldn't properly digest, and she ended up 4th in GC.

The next season she was determined to make the final step to stardom and she started training harder and eating less, but her body couldn't handle that either and she missed the Giro once again. That race was instead won by the one year older Michela Fanini, who would tragically leave this world after a car accident only a few months later. Luperini was able to race in France, but not at the level from the year before and she finished 14th in the end.

In 1995, she cracked the code. A dominant victory at the Giro del Trentino in May made her one of the favourites for the Giro, and this time she would finally be taking the start. Luzia Zberg, the older sister of Beat and Markus, had finished on the podium the two previous years and was expected to be fighting for the win once again, from a field that also featured a then 46 year old Maria Canins among others.

Stage 4 finished at Pianezze and it didn't take long for a determined Luperini (who probably wasn't riding paniapples this time around) to drop everyone but Zberg. With around 7 km to go, the 40-ish kg. Pantanina said arrivederci to her Swiss companion and eventually reached the line with a gap of more than 1:30, to win her the first of a total 15 Giro stages. The second came just 24 hours later at San Martino di Castrozza. She won the GC by 2:30 in the end, the first of five overall titles. A month later she obliterated everyone in France and won by 8 minutes ahead of Jeannie Longo and 10 ahead of Zberg in 3rd, before returning home to celebrate the achievement.

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Luperini reaching the line at Pianezze

She went on to win the Giro-Tour double three times in a row between '95 and '97, as well as another Giro in '98, but it then took another decade before she rather surprisingly won her last Giro at the age of 34. The last of her 90-ish career wins came at he Giro del Trentino in 2012, two years before she retired. She later worked as a DS for Corratec until last season.

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The 1995 race was a duel between an Italian and a Swiss, which could possibly become the case this year as well. The last time a Swiss rider won the Giro happened 10 yeas after Luperini's maiden victory, when Nicole Brändli was victorious for the third time. That race even went through Switzerland. The penultimate stage, on the 9th of July, exactly 20 years ago today, started in Briga and went over the Passo Sempione/Simplonpass before finishing in Domodossola across the border. That stage was attended by a then 13-year old Elisa Longo Borghini.
 
There's still nearly an hour until the live broadcast will start. We have a break, which surprisingly has Lorena Wiebes in it, as well as Alessia Vigilia, Eleonora Gasparrini, Lieke Nooijen. They have advantage of somewhere between a minute and a minute and half.

Georgi didn't start today and Cavalli has just abandoned, so it hasn't been a Picnic for them.
 
There's still nearly an hour until the live broadcast will start. We have a break, which surprisingly has Lorena Wiebes in it, as well as Alessia Vigilia, Eleonora Gasparrini, Lieke Nooijen. They have advantage of somewhere between a minute and a minute and half.

Georgi didn't start today and Cavalli has just abandoned, so it hasn't been a Picnic for them.
Maybe for the intermediate sprint points? Otherwise the jersey can go to the climbers with only 1 flat stage left.
 
I have no clue what kind of strategy VDB is doing in all these races. 90% I watch her on a a climb she just sets a tempo at the front, pulling everyone until someone says "thank you" attacks and she drops. Just pulled for 5km straight with 10-15 riders in her wheel.

Gigante with a fantastic attack and win, great to see.
 
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No surprise to see Gigante win as I have posted for years she's the most talented Aussie female cyclist, I've seen in the last ten years. A fun fact is that she rode the fastest ascent of the Alpe D'Huez in last years TDF. The only problem is that when in the Niewiadoma group at the top of the second last climb she got dropped like a stone on the descent. I am also impressed with Holmgren.
 
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No surprise to see Gigante win as I have posted for years she's the most talented Aussie female cyclist, I've seen in the last ten years. A fun fact is that she rode the fastest ascent of the Alpe D'Huez in last years TDF. The only problem is that when in the Niewiadoma group at the top of the second last climb she got dropped like a stone on the descent. I am also impressed with Holmgren.
This kind of stage is perfect for her, a bit like an Iván Sosa type, just for completely different reasons. He's great at Unipuerto because he has no engine, Gigante is great at Unipuerto because she has a fantastic engine but her descending is sub-Igor Antón level atrocious.

She's been a huge talent for years, but a lack of durability, health problems and a heavily lopsided skillset have really restricted her. As the general profile of races changes and becomes more varied, however, she will hopefully find more of a niche. It's happening while she's still young enough that she should be in a good position to capitalise if and when it does. After all, Pauliena Rooijakkers has a lot of the same limitations and has been a brilliant climber for years who has in all honesty been undervalued for several years due to the kind of courses on the circuit, and is now hitting her stride in her early 30s because the parcours trends are more suited to her skillset than they were in the 2010s now. However, if mountain stages wind up giving us more genuine multi-col stage designs in the vein of last year's Tour queen stage or the 2022 Giro mountain stages, then she's really going to need to work on that descending to be able to maximise her results, there's too much depth in the péloton nowadays to allow for an outlier to descend like Mara Abbott or early career Emma Pooley - even if they're outlying climbers like those two were in their heydays.

Oh, and it was a lot of fun to see SD Worx drop away from GC relevance. A lot of Schadenfreude, I will admit, but then it's not like I ever hid my likes and dislikes within that squad in previous years.
 
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I have no clue what kind of strategy VDB is doing in all these races. 90% I watch her on a a climb she just sets a tempo at the front, pulling everyone until someone says "thank you" attacks and she drops. Just pulled for 5km straight with 10-15 riders in her wheel.

Gigante with a fantastic attack and win, great to see.

it was so funny listening to the commentary try and excuse VdBs tactics too, she was riding at a blistering high pace, the other riders were all strung out, no one can challenge her...even when Reusser clearly attacked and took a group with her and dropped VdB comfortably, it was oh and VdB has moved off the front there.

and then when Gigante went, it was we all know how strong a climber she is, rewind 5kms and theyre picking VdB, then Reusser, then ELB and actually criticising AG Soudal for having 3 riders in the group and just sitting on. :rolleyes:
 
Stage 5: Mirano - Monselice, 120 km

Official start at 11:45
Expected finish at around 14:30

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After yesterday's mountain shootout we return to the flatlands (not the Ann Kristin kind) for stage 5. It doesn't look like there will be a lot of wind, so I don't expect to see echelons. Today's intermediate sprint is located in Mira after 37 km.

Unlike in Trento, this one is finishing on a circuit that will be ridden twice. The 14 km include a hill (approx. 500m at 5-6% avg.) in Arquà Petrarca, but there's still 7.5 km left from the top of it. They could have made it slightly harder by riding through the town on a cobbled road or by continuing northeast for a short while.

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They will turn right 2.5 km from the line after they've rode under a bridge. They will then follow the narrower road displayed below for 1.8 km, before making two right turns inside the final km, with the last one coming 500m from the finish.

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Monselice hosted a Giro finish back in 1997, which was won by Catherine Marsal, who was the first woman to sort of complete the Triple Crown, by winning the Giro, the WC road race in Utsunomiya and the Tour de la CEE Féminin 35 years ago. The men's Giro rode through the town earlier this year, and Diego Ulissi won here in 2020. I don't know what the route looked like in 1997, but in the men's races they've taken advantage of the hills around Galzignano Terme, but that is not the case today.