Demi Vollering gets her stage win but she has a problem – Analysing the Giro d'Italia Women GC picture after shock time trial and thrilling mountain stage

Demi Vollering (FDJ United-SUEZ) appeared blissfully unaware up at Nevegal on Tuesday afternoon after completing her stage 4 time trial at the Giro d'Italia Women. “I was very happy about my effort. Marlen showed she's very strong with this kind of effort, so good job for her,” said the pre-race favourite.

She was referring to falling six seconds short of world champion Marlen Reusser’s benchmark time, but she had no idea of the damage she was suffering at the hands of Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) a short distance down the mountain.

Van der Breggen won the stage by a country mile, putting a whopping 1:09 into Vollering. We weren’t treated to Vollering’s reaction once she’d found out the full and final time gaps, but it’s fair to suspect she’d have been little surprised, and a good deal concerned.

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Twenty-four hours later, Vollering bounced back to win stage 5, the first direct confrontation between the pink jersey hopefuls, and with it claimed her first-ever stage win in the Giro. However, it did little to repair the damage inflicted the previous day, and little to suggest that wrestling that pink jersey off the shoulders of Van der Breggen will be anything other than a headache and a struggle.

Stage 5 was a belter, a mountain stage with four climbs and 3,400 metres of elevation gain, which served up an open and tactical race from the start. It has to be said that Vollering and her team rode very well indeed, and it’s worth a moment to pause and praise Lauren Dickson, who infiltrated the early breakaway before linking up to work repeatedly for Vollering as the favourites’ group fragmented and key rivals such as Reusser and Elisa Longo Borghini were left behind. In many ways Dickson, riding her first season at WorldTour level, was the star of the show today.

Vollering herself launched several attacks, and she comfortably won the four-up sprint for the stage win. But this was not the sort of dominant display we’ve almost come to expect from the former Tour de France Femmes winner.

Going solo was never perhaps the clearest plan on a route that counted 16km from the final climb to the finish, but even so, Vollering’s efforts on the twin ascents of the Costa climb did relatively little to unsettle her opponents.

Van der Breggen reacted calmly and in controlled fashion each time, and while Longo Borghini and Reusser struggled, it was interesting that two others were able to follow so comfortably. In fact, Isabella Holmgren (Lidl-Trek) and Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon-SRAM) looked like the easiest-pedaling members of that lead group – as Dani Rowe said on TNT Sports: “Niedermaier was astonishing, she genuinely looked like she was breathing through her nose.”

Vollering, meanwhile, had pain written on her face – on several occasions the cameras caught her mid-grimace. We’ve become accustomed to seeing Vollering operating a level above the rest but that wasn’t the case out there today.

It might seem harsh to be picking holes in the stage winner but the reality is that Vollering is still riding with a one-minute deficit to the maglia rosa, with this the first of two critical mountain road stages. The second, of course, is where this Giro will be won and lost, with stage 8 going up and over the mighty Colle Delle Finestre in what is obviously the most important point of the race.

There is ample ground and gravel there for Vollering to stretch her wings, and she’ll surely take heart from the fact that Van der Breggen only last month was leading the Vuelta Femenina, only to come unstuck on the penultimate day on a similarly savage climb, the Angliru.

But this seems to be a different Van der Breggen to the one we saw in Spain. The time trial margin of victory was already a surprise, and she issued a note-perfect defense of her maglia rosa in what could have been a tricky stage to handle. She had good support from Valentina Cavallar, she responded calmly to Vollering’s attacks, she took charge of the pace at other moments, and she even attacked on the descents.

Having come out of retirement last year, are we seeing the Dutchwoman back to her very best?

The length and severity of the Finestre will be a huge test for her, but right now she’s looking very solid indeed. And for those of us watching, that advantage she has - and will likely take into the Finestre - should set up a mouth-watering showdown on Saturday.

Big names slide, fresh faces rise

Elsewhere, it’s looks fairly clear that neither last year’s winner Longo Borghini nor the runner-up, Marlen Reusser, will be winning this Giro.

Longo Borghini conceded 1:50 to Van der Breggen and 41 seconds to Vollering in the time trial – a portent of her struggles on stage 5. The Italian champion gamely fought back and limited her losses to just 15 seconds with fifth place, but there’s no getting away from the fact that every time the road went uphill she was left behind by the best in the race. She finds herself sixth overall, 2:12 down.

The same is true for Reusser, who was always facing a challenge this year with a non-flat TT, a huge mountain to decide the race, and a heavily-disrupted season so far. The Swiss rider lost nearly a minute and dropped from third to fifth, at 2:03.

That allowed Vollering to move into second place behind Van der Breggen at 1 minute flat, with Niedermaier – who had a very good TT with fourth place – now occupying the third podium spot at 1:24 down.

Holmgren, the rising Canadian star who won over the Finestre in the Tour de l’Avenir two years ago, was the other member of the leading group and is now fourth overall, though her relatively weak TT means she’s closer to Longo Borghini and Reusser, at 2:01 down.

This sets up an interesting fight for the podium between those two up-and-coming riders, and it’s worth noting that Lidl-Trek have two riders in the mix with Niamh Fisher Black (Lidl-Trek) seventh at 2:33. Femke De Vries is only a handful of seconds further back and now Visma-Lease a Bike’s leader after the team made the call for Marion Bunel – who lost time on the opening day and was disappointing in the TT – to work for her.

The Giro continues with a flat stage on Thursday and a relatively comfortable stage on Friday, and it goes on to finish with final stage that’s hilly and complicated to control but obviously decisive. That leaves Saturday’s Finestre showdown as the pivotal GC battleground.

We have a race favorite with a lot of work to do, an old hand rolling back the years, and plenty of fresh faces rising to the occasion. The scene is set rather nicely indeed.

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