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AFTER a rest day allowing the caravan to travel from Sardinia to the mainland, cycling’s Giro Donne, the women’s tour of Italy, resumes today in Emilia-Romagna with Italy’s road-race world champion Elisa Balsamo in the leader’s pink jersey, the maglia rosa.
Saturday’s podium was a rerun of Friday’s, albeit in a different order. In successive bunch sprints, three-times Giro winner Marianne Vos went long; on Friday in Tortoli, with the help of teammate Elisa Longo Borghini, Balsamo was able to overhaul the Dutchwoman on the line, with Charlotte Kool taking third spot.
But on Saturday in Olbia, Vos left her rivals in her wake to grab a record 31st stage win in the race over the years. This time, fellow Dutch rider Kool was second and Balsamo third, though the Italian had the compensation of retaining pink.
Balsamo also has the maglia ciclamino (purple) as leader of the points classification and, among the large contingent of fellow countrywomen in the race, the blue jersey for best Italian rider, of course. Franziska Koch of Germany wears the best young rider’s white jersey.
The Giro Donne is women’s cycling’s most prestigious stage race, though it faces some welcome competition this year with a revival of the Women’s Tour de France, which starts later this month.
Today’s stage signals the start of the 10-stage race’s challenges for climbers: after passing through the Castiglione di Ravenna and Forlimpopoli, the riders face a third-category climb in Bertinoro and later two second-cat climbs, the Colle del Barbotto (515m altitude) and in Monteleone (355m) before heading back to Cesena, where today’s stage began.
