'Expect the unexpected' – Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto aim at GC and sprint stages at Giro d'Italia Women, but warn of unpredictability

Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto head to the 2025 Giro d'Italia Women with a two-pronged attack plan on the overall, as young German racer Antonia Niedermaier takes aim at a GC bid while Chiara Consonni is their rider for the bunch sprints.

Niedermaier, 22, finished sixth overall in the 2024 race, whilst in the 2023 edition she claimed victory on a tough mountainous stage to Ceres ahead of overall winner Annemiek van Vleuten, but then had to abandon the following day.

Consonni, meanwhile, has taken a stage win every year since 2022 in her home Grand Tour, with last summer's victory on stage 2 against Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) a notable highlight of her season.

"I think this year, the Giro is a bit harder than in other years, so we try first to be focused on the GC with Toni [Niedermaier]," Consonni said in a team press release about a Giro d'Italia which starts in her home city of Bergamo on Sunday.

"Then we will see if there will be an opportunity for me, of course, but I don’t think there are a lot! I will still be ready for every stage that it’s not super hard and which can arrive in a bunch sprint."

"For sure it is a special race for me," added Niedermaier. "This year I hope I can be on the podium, but we will also try to fight for the overall GC."

Riding their twelfth and fifteenth Giro d'Italia respectively, Canyon will be able to draw heavily on veterans Italian Soraya Paladin and Australian Tiffany Cromwell's lengthy experience in the race.

Apart from helping to guide the younger riders in the squad, Paladin said she would be looking to make an impact on stage four to Pianezze, as she knows the roads well from training, while Cromwell pointed out that the Italian Grand Tour invariably tends to produce multiple unpredictable scenarios.

"Nothing ever surprises me in this race. Something typically Giro though is that you’ve always got to expect the unexpected – especially with the routes and stage profiles. It might look easy on paper, but many times you then get a surprise crazy climb or something entirely unexpected. We call that the 'Giro stitch-up'."

As for her own condition, Cromwell said that after a long spell away from road racing because of fracturing her collarbone and then the cancellation of the Lotto Thüringen Tour, she hoped that the gravel racing and month-long spell at altitude could help put her back on the right track.

"I think the main thing will be that I come in with a fresh mindset having been away from the road for a while," she said, "whereas some people start to get a bit tired mentally by the middle of the season."

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