SD Worx-Protime stumbles, new talents rise and Tour de France Femmes indicators flow – Six conclusions from the 2025 Giro d'Italia Women

The second women's Grand Tour of the season has concluded with Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ) keeping the momentum rolling at her new squad, UAE Team ADQ, claiming back-to-back titles at the Giro d'Italia Women.

La Vuelta Femenina champion Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez) may have opted not to compete in this event, but the peloton featured many of the top stage racers and climbers in the world, which made for a thrilling 36th edition of the Italian Grand Tour.

The maglia rosa changed hands between three riders during the eight-day race: first going to Marlen Reusser (Movistar) after the Bergamo time trial, then to Anna Henderson (Lidl-Trek) with her breakaway success in Aprica, then back to Reusser in Pianezze, before Italian Champion, Longo Borghini, claimed it for good atop the decisive Monte Nerone.

Cyclingnews highlights a handful of the key talking points, including the SD Worx-Protime highs and lows, the rising talents and a look ahead to the event's move to late-May in 2026 for the first time in its nearly four-decade history.

Potential proven

The Giro d’Italia Women has been good to the rising Australians over the last two years. Last year, it was Neve Bradbury (Canyon-SRAM) who climbed to victory in the queen stage and claimed the third spot on the podium, and this year, Sarah Gigante upped the ante with summit stage wins, a podium place in third and the climbers’ jersey.

It was a performance that would be a big outcome for any rider, but given what Gigante has been through since she started her career, it is nothing short of monumental. In little more than half a season, the rider from Melbourne has gone from surgery for iliac artery endofibrosis to proving her long-suspected potential as she claimed her first and second Grand Tour stage wins.

Right through from the 18-year-old’s first elite Australian road race title in 2019 and her first time trial title win in 2020, the Brunswick Cycling Club member clearly had some serious pointers on show to indicate that she may have what it takes to end up on a Grand Tour podium. However, the rocky ride she has had on the path, with a raft of injuries and serious illness on top of obstacles that limited opportunity, has seriously tested the reserves of determination, but fortunately, that is not an area where Gigante is wanting.

The Tour Down Under victory in 2024 may have fanned the flames – and instantly vindicated AG Insurance-Soudal’s decision to take the rider from Movistar – and so did the seventh on debut at the Tour de France Femmes in 2024, but after the performance of recent days at the Giro d’Italia Women there is no room left for any doubt that Gigante has what it takes to climb with the best in the world.

The two stage wins on summit finishes were even delivered in such emphatic style that the solid time gaps they yielded meant she came third even after losing 1:42 in the splits of stage 5. The fact that the amount of time she lost that day in the echelons was much larger than the 1:11 gap that stood between third and the maglia rosa was also a clear indicator of how big a threat she could be if all the puzzle pieces fell together.

Now that the hurdle of iliac artery endofibrosis is removed, Gigante is not just back, but is back better than ever and, with a little more experience and patience thrown in, it looks like there is no limit to just how far the 24-year-old rider can climb.

Faltering favourites

There is no doubt that if Lotte Kopecky has once again shown up to the Giro d’Italia with anything close to the form she had on display last year, when she came second overall, that she would be entering the Tour de France Femmes with no room for doubt that she was one of the riders who would have to sit at the very top of the favourites list. If teammate Anna van der Breggen, too, had managed to build on the third place of La Vuelta Femenina, there would have been plenty of reason for rivals to fear the formidable duo at SD Worx-Protime.

However, the GC outcome in Italy was disappointing for the team, even though it wasn’t exactly talking up its chances for 2025 at the race, given the focus has long been on the French Grand Tour to come, where Kopecky is expected to be team leader and Van der Breggen key climbing support, plus a potential plan B.

Lorena Wiebes, of course, delivered on the sprint front, taking two stages, but Van der Breggen certainly wasn’t quite there with the climbing form that had taken her to four victories at the event before her three-year retirement. 13th on the summit finish to Pianezze wasn’t terrible, but it also wasn’t great, and neither was 10th on Monte Nerone or sixth overall. The second on the punchy final stage may have been some consolation, but there will be hope for more from the climbing legs at the Tour de France.

Van der Breggen's solid but not spectacular performance, however, would not really have been an issue if there hadn't been reason to more closely examine the team's potential plan B for the Tour de France Femmes when Kopecky on stage 4 let go of the GC favourites from almost the start of the finishing climb and lost more than 19 minutes on stage winner Sarah Gigante. This was more than a bad day; something was wrong with the rider who had long been slated as the team's GC leader for the Tour de France Femmes.

Kopecky was suffering from back pain while climbing, and it put her out of contention and ultimately out of the race, with the world champion abandoning after stage 5 to rest and recover before the French Grand Tour. The team said that after a few days rest Kopecky’s lower back should heal completely so she can resume her preparations, but the less than ideal lead in introduces an element of doubt over whether or not the team, that has come either first or second in France with Demi Vollering over the past three years, can continue its run.

Movistar welcome solid GC leader in Reusser

Marlen Reusser's disappointment was palpable as she sat on the pavement just over the finish line, after losing the maglia rosa atop Monte Nerone with just one day to go at the Giro d'Italia. She came into this Giro d'Italia as one of the favourites to win the race, and her expectations were in line with her proven form and support while wearing the colours of her new team, Movistar.

Her switch from the dominant SD Worx-Protime to Movistar was one of the most talked-about in the transfer season between 2024 and 2025, but it put her in the perfect position to break free from her previous role as a super-domestique and show her capabilities as an overall contender.

She has always been a powerful all-rounder, and while she specialises in the time trial event, she has also shown a high capacity for climbing, breakaway riding and supporting her teammates.

She came into this race having already finished second at La Vuelta Femenina before following that with wins at Vuelta a Burgos and Tour de Suisse, so it is no surprise she has her eye set on the yellow jersey at the Tour de France Femmes. At the Giro, she confirmed that she is a major contender in the Grand Tours, a position that Movistar hasn't been in since Annemiek van Vleuten retired in 2023.

She won the opening time trial and rode a consistent race at this Giro d'Italia, wearing the maglia rosa for five of the eight days before finishing second overall, 18 seconds behind Elisa Longo Borghini. She may not have won the overall title this time, but she has proven that she has what it takes to be in with another shot at overall victory in two weeks at the Tour de France Femmes.

Lidl-Trek surprises along the way

Lidl-Trek went into this Giro d'Italia supporting Shirin van Anrooij in the overall classification, and while the Dutch rider finished a strong 11th place, it was her teammate Isabella Holmgren who surprised with a consistent eight days of racing and seventh overall on the final day in Imola.

Maybe we shouldn't have been too shocked to see Holmgren racing as strongly as she was. After all, she had already shown her climbing strengths earlier this year with a victory at the mountainous Durango-Durango Emmakumeen Saria, plus she was 14th overall at the Tour de Suisse and Itzulia Women.

But her consistency in the Giro across the medium-mountain stages and in the higher mountains – seventh atop Pianezze, third atop the queen stage Monte Nerone and sixth in Imola – solidified her as one of the fastest rising talents in road racing. She was also second in the youth classification behind an established Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon-Sram Zondacrypto).

She is no stranger to high-level success, having won junior and under-23 world titles in cyclocross and cross-country mountain biking, but her high performance has taken on a whole new level in Grand Tour road racing.

Lidl-Trek was already turning heads earlier on in this Giro d'Italia, too, with a breakaway victory from Anna Henderson, who wore the maglia rosa for two stages until losing it to Reusser at Pianezze. While Henderson's success, itself, is no surprise as an Olympic medallist and stage racer, her efforts took some of the pressure off of the team and Holmgren and Van Anrooij as the race hit the higher mountains.

With Elisa Longo Borghini's departure and Gaia Realini not on the start list for the team after what has been a less-than-ideal season so far, there may not have been any expectation they would walk away with the maglia rosa again this year, but there is every reason for them to have walked away with hope for the future.

A 2026 transformation

For many years, the Giro d’Italia Women had a clear run as the dominant multi-day women’s tour, though the re-introduction of a Tour de France Femmes in 2022 changed all that. With both races so close together, the Italian race this year concluding on July 13 and the French Grand Tour starting on July 26, often some compromises are required.

Some riders turn up to the first of the events underdone with the aim of building for the second, others don’t turn up at all, and some, such as two-time victor Elisa Longo Borghini, go into the Giro in top form knowing that they may pay in France as a result.

“Usually you have to compromise a little bit, one of the two,” the Italian victor told Cyclingnews before the racing began, but that will change next year when the women’s Giro will run from May 30 to June 7. “This way you can just rest, reshuffle, reset, and be ready for the Tour de France to really target the GC.”

That, also, if just one of the consequences of the move for the Giro d’Italia Women, which has also included a switch of organiser to RCS Sport, which runs the men’s Giro d’Italia.

Not only does the new timeslot open the door for a wider spread of rivals to battle it out in Italy, but also for it to draw more eyes. The current time slot clashes with the men’s Tour de France, which can make it hard for the race to get as much attention as the long-running women’s Grand Tour deserves. Though with it instead following on from the men's race, the less saturated time slot and an audience looking to fill the void could deliver a whole new set of viewers to the race, which has delivered so many tough and exciting battles over the years.

The lead-in to wide-open Tour de France Femmes

Elisa Longo Borghini's victory at the Giro d'Italia and the performances of other general classification contenders naturally flow into a discussion about the upcoming Tour de France Femmes that will kick off on July 26.

Longo Borghini, with support from UAE Team ADQ, has now proven her form across the mid and high mountains of Italy in comparison to some of her biggest rivals and teams to secure a second overall title in the Italian Grand Tour, especially ahead of a rival like Marlen Reusser (Movistar), who has this season emerged as a key rival to former teammate Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez).

Likewise, it shows the unexpected sub-par performances of Lotte Kopecky, who abandoned due to back pain, and Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime), who wasn't racing to her full potential. French duo Évita Muzic and Juliette Labous (FDJ-Suez) were also among those who will want to debrief and improve in the intervening two weeks before the start of the Tour.

It will be back to the drawing board for some teams, but there were also a number of riders who opted not to compete at the Giro to focus on their Tour objectives through altitude training camps and previews of the major mountain stages, which include the Col de Madeleine, Col de Joux Plane and a tough finale in Châtel.

Canyon-Sram defending champion Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney will have been solely focused on her preparations for the Tour de France Femmes as she attempts to win a second consecutive title, while FDJ-Suez will rely heavily on former Tour champion Demi Vollering, with Muzic and Labous likely to play key support roles.

Other riders on the hunt for yellow could be Pauliena Rooijakkers (Fenix-Deceuninck), who was fourth at the Giro, as well as Marion Bunel and Pauline-Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike), adding to a whole new level of competition at the Tour de France Femmes.