Longo Borghini defends Giro Women maglia rosa in the heat of the first climbing stage

On the first summit finish of the Giro d’Italia Women, Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek) defended her pink leader’s jersey by finishing fourth on the day behind stage winner Niamh Fisher-Black (SD Worx-Protime). 

Just in front of Longo Borghini on the mountain climb rode Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) and Juliette Labous (DSM-Firmenich PostNL), taking podium spots, but more importantly, they carved away at Longo Borghini's overall lead.

“The final climb was as expected, very, very steady. But what really defined the stage was the warmth and in the last few kilometres I could really feel it. Fisher-Black and [Mavi] García went away, but for us, they are not a threat. I just tried in a sprint, but Labous and Kopecky were just faster than me. Chapeau to Fisher-Black for winning,” Longo Borghini said after the stage.

“This was the first test for my legs uphill, and it went pretty well, I felt good. Keeping the maglia rosa is pretty special. It’s a maglia rosa for the whole team, the way they’re riding, they all deserve a piece of this jersey,” she said after receiving her third consecutive pink jersey.

Longo Borghini pointed to the heat in the Po Valley as the main difficulty of the stage before the showdown on the finishing climb.

“Keeping hydrated was the key. I need to thank my teammates because they were going up and down from the car to bring me water, bottles, and ice. So really, thanks to my teammates because otherwise I would have been really cooked now. 

"I'm still not completely used to this type of weather, every day we’re gaining a little bit form in the warmth. We look strong, we have a strong team, and we keep going this way,” Longo Borghini said.

The race leader was cautiously optimistic as she looked forward to the stages to come as the race makes its way south. However, her gap to a surging Kopecky is now just 13 seconds.

“It was a very good day, not only for myself, but also for Niamh. We know she’s a really strong climber, and we told her many times that she needs to take her chances. Today she did, and it worked out very well,” the World Champion said.

She also took the red jersey as the leader in the points classification, which she noted was not a priority.

“It was not a goal before the Giro, and I don’t think that I will sprint for the intermediates on the next days, but if I can gain points on the finish line, then it will maybe be possible [to keep it],” said Kopecky.

With her third place on the stage, Labous also moved into a podium place and is now 25 seconds behind the maglia rosa. Her team suffered an untimely puncture but was saved as Canyon-SRAM took charge of the pace on the lower slopes of the Toano climb.

“Unfortunately, Nienke [Vinke] had a puncture at the bottom of the climb, but Canyon did the pace we wanted and had planned to do, so it worked out for us. I felt like it was quite hard at the bottom, but I could ride into it and felt I had good legs. The podium is a nice stage result for us and with the bonus seconds, I think we can be happy with today,” said the French climber.

Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon-SRAM) lost contact with the other GC riders on the final kilometre, finishing 17 seconds down in ninth place, but the 21-year-old German still jumped to fourth place overall, one second ahead of Fisher-Black. She also defended the white U23 jersey, increasing her lead to 56 seconds over her teammate Neve Bradbury and 1:26 minutes to Lore De Schepper (AG Insurance-Soudal).

“I’m really happy I could keep the white jersey and also moved up in the GC. For sure, today wasn’t easy, especially with the heat, so I’m happy with what I did. My teammates really gave it all, we went all-in for the last climb, they were just amazing, so really big thanks to all of them,” Niedermaier said.