Giro d'Italia Women stage 8 LIVE: Who will emerge from the big mountain showdown?
The Queen Stage is here, and the moment the race has been building toward, with the Colle delle Finestre climb, where anything can happen in pursuit of the maglia rosa
Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) has been in the overall lead since her remarkable win in the mountain time trial, but can she defend after crashing yesterday?
She was among multiple fallers in a mass crash on stage 7.
70km to go
The race is heading east now, following the autostrada highway along the valley of the Dora la Riparia river. It the wind was a cross breeze before, now it's a tail breeze, it's only around 8km/h.
If any breakaway gets up the road they won't have long before they reach the bottom of the Finestre. It starts with 43km to go.
Defending champion, Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ) lost time early in this Giro, but ever since she's tried to take it back where she can.
"You always have to fight," downhill attack sees Longo Borghini move closer to the maglia rosa.
There's a bit of cross wind here, more of a cross breeze, but it may give an opportunity for a breakaway.
The average speed has dropped to 41km/h, but it's still quick. No seems to want to let anyone else up the road.
We've not reached that wall yet, but we are on the shallow descent of the first slope, which is steeper than the uphill was, about -6%.
Gaia Masetti (Picnic-PostNL) had a small gap for a while, but she's caught.
There's a really steep little wall coming up shortly, only about 300m in length, but the gradients are above 20%.
We've talked about all the climbing but there is an intermediate sprint today. Coming at Meana di Susa, it's on the steep opening slopes of the Finestre.
Crucially there are 6, 4 and 2 bonus seconds there.
The first 60km of today's stage contain almost 600m of climbing. There are 2,300m in the final 43km.
The race is on a very gentle rise at the moment, it's no more than 3% and there's a gentle tail wind making it even harder to get a gap.
We've not been going too long but the average speed is 42km/h. No wonder there's no breakaway yet.
Will Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) be climbing the podium in pink after the race?
It's a fast start so far, plenty of riders will want to get up the road, others will be hoping the break goes sooner rather than later.
At the moment the weather isn't too bad at the moment, sunshine and around 23º. Don't expect that to last, the mountain tops will cold and there's rain forecast, which could make this day even more tough.
The official start
Here we go, this'll be a tense fight for the breakaway, with GC teams either defending or trying to get riders up the road.
The opening 60km are almost as flat as they could be, but then the Colle delle Finestre rears up, taking the riders from 480m to 2169m above sea level. And with that over and done with, there's the final 9km ascent to Sestriere.
Today will be a big day in the saddle, but first we have 2km of neutral, and we're rolling.
The Colle delle Finestre is the main climb of today's stage.
It joins the list of mythical climbs ridden in the Giro d'Italia Women.
Today's stage takes the peloton from Rivoli in the far north west of Italy, to Sestriere, 106km and 2,900m vertical ascent later.
"Sometimes it's better not to know."
This is one of the things they're racing for, even if the jersey is perhaps the most well known trophy from the Giro.
Friday's seventh stage was hugely entertaining, would the break make it or would it be a bunch kick? In the end it was a mix of both.
Célia Gery wins stage 7 as Elisa Longo Borghini takes GC time.
Today we tackle the brutal and iconic Colle delle Finestre on the way to Sestriere. We roll out at 14:00CET.
Good morning and welcome to the live coverage of the most eagerly anticipated stage of the entire Giro. It's stage 8 and we're high in the mountains.
