Giro Rosa: Marianne Vos wins stage 2

Marianne Vos (CCC-Liv) won the sprint of a reduced group in the second stage of the Giro d'Italia Internazionale Femminile in Viu. She proved to be faster on the uphill finish than fellow Dutch riders Annemiek van Vleuten (Mitchelton-Scott) and Lucinda Brand (Sunweb).

It was Vos' 22nd stage win in this race, which she has won the overall three times. She took this victory with a clear gap over her rivals, who all struggled up the closing 6.9 per cent gradient in the final kilometre.

Canyon-SRAM's Katarzyna Niewiadoma retained the overall lead ahead of her teammates; 12 seconds ahead of Omer Shapria and 19 seconds over Alena Amialiusik.

"The stage was short but at the same time quite hard. The 15km climb straight out of the blocks wasn't super easy and I found it especially interesting because you could see how all of the GC favourites were going," said Niewiadoma after the podium.

"On the contrary, the last climb was not as hard as everyone expected so there was still a pretty big bunch rolling towards the finish line. That made it a quite hectic and chaotic race overall. I was hoping I could do at least top three today, but in the end I missed some positioning.

"Overall we are happy. I had a small crash 5km into the stage so I only rode a few kilometres on my new special Canyon bike before I had to change to my team edition bike. But I'm feeling okay and I know that my great physiotherapists Alessandra (Borchi) and Lars (Schiffner) will look after me tonight and I'll be ready for tomorrow!"

How it unfolded

The stage was marked by several break groups. The last one formed with 45km to go and was caught again with only 6km remaining.

The day started out with an immediate challenge. After only 2km, the climbing started, sending the field 15.7km up the cat. 2 Colle de Lis, with some steep sections, many hairpin curves, and fortunately on a very hot day, lots of shade.

Antri Christoforou of Cogeas Mettler-Look and Sofie De Vuyst (Parkhotel Valkenburg) were the first to get away on the climb. De Vuyst dropped her rival on the way up, taking top points at the peak. The duo was caught and everything came back together on the long descent.

With 45km to go, the bunch split on the flat. Romy Kasper (Ale Cipollini) and Kelly Van den Steen (Lotto Soudal Ladies) jumped to form the next break group. The field was happy to let them go, but as they approached the 30km marker with a nearly three minute gap, the field realized it may have made a mistake.

Boels Dolmans took over the chase work, and with 20km to go the gap had dropped to 2:25. The final ascent to the finish had started, a challenging combination of flat and short steep sections.

Bigla moved up to the head of the field, and within 5km the gap was down to just over a minute. There was also an intermediate sprint, with the points going to Van den Steen, Kasper and Lucinda Brand (Sunweb).

The speeding peloton drew closer and closer to the leading pair, coming to within 20 seconds with 10km left. The gradient started decreasing but the summer heat was increasing.

Mitchelton-Scott jumped to take over the chase, and with 6km to go, the pair was caught. It was all uphill from there to the finish, and Mitchelton-Scott, BePink and Canyon-SRAM shared the lead on the way up.

Several riders tried to jump in the closing kilometres, but were denied. Tayler Wiles took off within the final kilometre but she was unsuccessful in staying away to the finish line.

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