I thought there might have been a touch of "Jesus Christ, everybody's puncturing. Don't play nasty as it's probably your turn next". Many of these riders will not-so-fondly remember the ankle-deep gravel in the 2020 Giro.
I'm eyeing up the lengths of the crucial climbs in this one and starting to curse myself for not picking Kasia in the prediction game. I know that this kind of length climb is her threshold, but I still picked her for a 14km climb in Burgos and didn't pick her for a 7km climb here.
SD Worx can at least say they have something out of the race, but obviously they are aiming bigger and not risking the stage win for the GC may come back and bite them - however they know more about how Demi and Ash are feeling at any given time than most of us will, so maybe that is a bit of a sign in and of itself?
As for Ash's not having won any WWT races in her career to date, there's a couple of factors in that. Firstly, being in a team with the likes of Vos and van der Breggen over the years means she's been usurped as team leader since her time with Bigla, and secondly, the paucity of real climbing races on the Women's World Tour in its early years, which has allowed a small number of riders to bogart all of those results. Look at other climbers out there and their WWT win totals. Cille has 2 (a stage of Burgos and yesterday's TDF stage) and Kasia has 5 (two one day races (Amstel Gold and Binda), and two stages and the GC of the Women's Tour) for example - not many considering their prominence. Lippert and Labous are on one each (the former the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race shortly before the pandemic, against a limited field, and the latter the GC of the Vuelta a Burgos). That's before we get to the likes of Pauliena Rooijakkers, Mavi García, Erica Magnaldi and Ane Santestebán, the latter of whom has gone 9 years since last winning at any level.
The relegation of the Giro Donne in 2021 means it's kind of a misnomer for Ash not to have any WWT wins too, since she won atop Monte Matajûr. She's also won stages and the GC at Emakumeen Bira, but not while it was WWT (including doing a complete number on Garfoot, Spratt and van Vleuten on Jaizkibel when outnumbered three to one), both Plumelec races in both 2017 and 2018, and a number of smaller races. She also finished 2nd in the queen stage and the GC of the Women's Tour in 2016, in the edition when Armitstead/Deignan was about to be yanked for avoiding doping controls, and won an extremely strong edition of the Boels Rentals Hills Classic back when there was no Amstel Gold Race so it fulfilled the function of that race.
So when you look at it, there's three races at least there that can be considered akin to WWT races but are not - two races which have been WWT but were not at the time she took a win, and one which was superseded by a new WWT race with more or less a similar field through the same area - and may have also acquired two through default if Lizzie's first missed test hadn't been scrubbed upon investigation.
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