'I can promise a battle' – Elisa Longo Borghini builds momentum toward title defence at Giro d’Italia Women

Last year Elisa Longo Borghini was lining up for her 13th Giro d’Italia Women as a constant contender while this year she starts in the powerful position of defending champion but, particularly in this totally reshuffled peloton, little can be taken for granted – not even by the rider starting the race with a number 1 pinned to their back.

“I'm definitely proud of what I achieved last year, but last year is last year and this year is 2025, so we start from zero again,” Longo Borghini told Cyclingnews in late June while on the road to the Italian Championships to hone her race legs after a preparatory team training camp at altitude.

"I did a very good training camp and run up to this race but it is a race – it has its own dynamics – and I can just control what I can control,” said Longo Borghini. “The start list has very strong riders who can compete for both the victory and the podium. I know I'm among them, but I cannot just be assured now that I will be the Giro leader or that I will be on the podium. I will just try to do my best together with my team and then, after you give your 110% and maybe you end up fifth, you will just accept it."

It’s not that Longo Borghini doesn’t have every reason to be carrying confidence in her form, as it's clear that the switch to a new team hasn’t put her on the back foot given that in her two stage races of the year so far, UAE Tour Women and Vuelta a Burgos Feminas, she has taken first and second overall. Add to that a Dwars door Vlaanderen and De Brabanse Pijl win, along with the second she claimed at the Italian Championships time trial shortly after we spoke and then the third national road title in a row she swept up, despite the event running on a course that played not to her strengths, but those of others.

Still, the rider knows all too well what fickle turns the race can deliver, preceding her year of victory with her first-ever DNF at the event in 2023 after a crash on stage 5. She may have started that day in second overall, and been in pursuit of the maglia rosa clad Annemiek van Vleuten, but ended up clambering up a roadside drop before limping over the line covered in scratches up her face and arm.

The course this year, once again, has plenty of challenges that could easily unravel solid gaps. There may not be a Zoncolan, Blockhaus or Mortirolo on the agenda but, regardless, the lesser-known Queen stage summit finale of the Monte Nerone isn’t exactly going to be a walk in the park, especially not with the succession of climbs on the lead-in.

“Well, I can tell you that if people are assuming that this Giro is not as hard as last year, just because there is not a mythical climb and they are not scared of a name like the Blockhaus … to be honest, if you look at the elevation and the length and everything it is designed the same, the structure is the same,” said Longo Borghini of the eight-day event.

“It starts with a TT, then you have a fairly hard stage, then some sprint stages, and then the last stages are very hard. So it's exactly the same format – we just miss a climb that has a name.”

A new WorldTour order

It’s not just the finishing summit of the queen stage that is introducing an unfamiliar element to this year’s race, with the differences in the Giro dynamics ranging far beyond that given that the already evolving peloton has re-assembled in the past season, the deck shuffled extensively enough that it’s like playing a whole new game.

There is no longer a team or rider that seems to rule them all, or just one key rivalry at play with the strength more evenly distributed as a number of key players, including Longo Borghini, have swapped from their long-running homes to new squads that have a strong motivation to create a new Women’s WorldTour order.

“This year in the spring, there were a lot of princesses, but never a queen," said Longo Borghini, pointing to the diversity of winners across key events. "So it's a sign that the level of the peloton has increased and every race you're going into has different dynamics and has different characters that can make the race very interesting."

The Giro is no exception.

Riders like Marlen Reusser (Movistar) and Juliette Labous (FDJ-SUEZ), who are both in new team colours in 2025, and returning four-time winner Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) who is back from retirement, are certainly likely challengers. Others like Shirin van Anrooij (Lidl-Trek) may also have more of a chance to shine, now that the GC leadership is more open on the team, given that Longo-Borghini is no longer on it.

Some of the aforementioned riders were among the overall challengers last year, but others weren’t. The other variable in 2025 is that there is also a form question mark to be answered with some potential challengers, as with the Giro concluding less than two weeks before the Tour de France Femmes starts some may be racing in Italy with an eye to building form for the racing later in July – which is the case for world champion Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) who came second in 2024.

The course may have similar characteristics to last year, but – particularly with a differing batch of rivals – there are some elements that may lean less to her advantage and others more. The time trial start, which last year put Longo Borghini in pink right at the start of the race, should deliver a solid start for the Italian but looks to lean more toward the advantage of Swiss time trial champion Reusser, who topped Labous and Longo Borghini at the Vuelta a Burgos Feminas race against the clock in May.

When it comes to the long climb of Monte Nerone at the end of the Queen stage, based on Van der Breggen’s pre-retirement performances, that could lean to her strengths. Still, the unknown is how far along the road of rebuilding her climbing form the returning Dutch rider is. Then, there is the anything but ceremonial final stage – and its lumpy parcours and which almost begs for the attacks to come thick and fast, then a downhill dash to the finish line has Longo Borghini written all over it. It’s a course that has much in common with the course of the road race for the World Championships at the start of the decade.

“It’s a stage I really like because I have good memories from Imola, 2020, and it's basically, let's say my perfect parcours – I’m the type of rider for those kind of parcours,” said the rider who came third at her home World Championships. “But we are definitely going too much ahead right now, but yeah, on paper, you can say that this is a stage that can suit my characteristics.”

The perfect finale for Longo Borghini should the race for the maglia rosa still be tight right till the very last day, though her comments once again make it clear the defending champion is not taking that, or anything else, for granted – focusing on the Giro journey rather than the number on the page.

“I want to walk away with a good experience with a new team, a good professional display of team tactics and team dynamics and, for myself, I just want to give my 110%,” said Longo Borghini in reply to the question of what she was hoping for from her home Grand Tour.

“Of course it would be nice to give a nice result to the team, because it's a new team, a new environment, and it's like giving back … repaying the confidence they gave to me. But I can just make sure that I can promise a battle, I cannot promise victories but a good fight – that's what I will do.”

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