Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) defended the maglia rosa as the general classification leader of the Giro d’Italia Women on a shortened stage 8 to the high elevation where snow and ice came into the equation.
Van der Breggen finished in the same time as stage winner Demi Vollering (FDJ United-SUEZ), who is now 49 seconds behind the 36-year-old going into the final day of racing on Sunday.
“It was an important day for this Giro. Of course, in the end, it was a bit shorter than expected. It feels good that I could stay in this first group again. I think we are really close together with these four riders, and I’m happy with the result,” said Van der Breggen at the press conference for the race leader.
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Vollering sprinted away on the last metres of gravel to win the stage ahead of Isabella Holmgren (Lidl-Trek) and Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon-SRAM), with Van der Breggen in fourth place. The loss of a stage podium meant she had a time loss for the bonus seconds (10, 6, and 4) for the first three finishers, but otherwise she held her solid lead.
The decision to shorten the stage had to be made with short notice as the situation changed rapidly with ice threatening to fall onto the road on the last kilometre of the Colle delle Finestre, and the riders were informed immediately.
“We had the information, but it came on the climb itself, so it came quite late," she recounted.
"But they [organisers] could not have made the decision earlier, and it was pretty clear. We knew that the finish line would be 1k from the top, so it was communicated well, I think.”
The fact that the finish line was suddenly only 7km away instead of over 35km changed the race. However, Van der Breggen said that her plan for the stage stayed the same as before.
“I needed to follow Demi, for sure, and Antonia and Isabella, that did not change for me. Only the fueling plan changed a bit.
"This climb was [raced] harder, normally it’s still downhill and another climb coming up, that was different now. You need to change the mindset a bit to suffering more on this climb. But we can switch that quite fast,” she explained.
The Colle delle Finestre was always going to be the decisive climb of the stage, and cutting the descent and gradual climb to the originally-planned finish in Sestriere would not have made a massive difference, with Van der Breggen acknowledging that the shortened stage played in her favour.
“I think it did not change so much, maybe some riders could have come back on the downhill or the flat part. But for me, it’s not bad that the stage is shorter when I’m in the first group,” she said.
The earlier-than-planned finish gave the riders more recovery time ahead of the final stage on Sunday, an unintended consequence that Van der Breggen appreciated.
“For me, it’s nice for recovery. It’s a bit of a shorter day because we have had a lot of long days this Giro."
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