Annemiek van Vleuten stole the show on stage 4 at the Giro d'Italia Donne, winning the stage and taking the maglia rosa with a dominant display of strength into Cesena. The Movistar rider attributed some of her success to the late Dutch football player and three-time winner of the Ballon d'Or in the 70s, Johan Cruyff, who said, "attacking is the best way to defend."
"When the stages were announced, today was not a day that I thought, 'I will go for it.' When I did a recon of it yesterday, I saw the crazy descents twice, and I didn't want to be put under pressure," Van Vleuten said at the finish of stage 4 where she was presented with the magila rosa.
"I thought about Johan Cruyff from the Netherlands, a famous football player known from Barcelona, who always said, 'attacking is the best way to defend, and that is what I did today."
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The fourth stage of the Giro Donne wasn't meant to be one of the GC deciders. Van Vleuten initially targeted the three decisive mountainous days on stage 7: Prevalle to Passo Maniva, stage 8: Rovereto to Aldeno, and stage 9: San Michele All'Adige to San Lorenzo Dorsino.
An important stage nonetheless, the 120.9km race in Cesena was the first properly hilly stage on the mainland after an opening time trial and two sprint stages on the island of Sardinia.
The route had three categorised climbs, plus one uncategorised but not insignificant climb in the final 12km before a descent into Cesena.
It wasn't the climbs that worried Van Vleuten, a former two-time champion of the Giro in 2018 and 2019 who thrives in the mountains. Instead, the descents caught her attention in a rest-day recon of the route on Sunday.
"I thought it would be easier to attack, and then I could go down the descent easy. It was to stay safe and out of trouble today. I saw a gap and went for it," Van Vleuten said.
Van Vleuten and breakaway riders Mavi Garcia (UAE Team ADQ) and Marta Cavalli (FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope), attacked over the second-category Colle del Barbotto with just over 50km to go, and they built a nearly five-minute lead on the nearest chasers.
Although Cavalli was distanced on the last ascent and finished third, Van Vleuten and Garcia sprinted for the stage win where the Dutch rider had the upper hand, winning the stage and taking the maglia rosa to boot.
Van Vleuten now leads the GC by 25 seconds on runner-up Garcia, 57 seconds on third-placed Cavalli, and then 5 minutes ahead of the next group led by fourth-placed Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo).
Van Vleuten isn't taking anything for granted after finishing third in the 2017 edition and abandoning the 2020 edition while in the race lead after sustaining a broken wrist in a crash on stage 7.
"I'll take it day by day; that's the lesson I learned in my first year at the Giro d'Italia. Tomorrow, with the wind, anything can happen, and I need to be taking it day by day."
