Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek) won stage 3 of the Giro d'Italia Women, taking another sprint victory in the maglia rosa ahead of Lily Williams (Human Powered Health) and Femke Gerritse (SD Worx-Protime) in an uphill sprint in Buja.
After the GC favourites split the race on the Montenars climb, a reduced peloton came back together on the run-in to the finish.
A flurry of attacks eventually saw Sigrid Ytterhus Haugset (Uno-X Mobility) get away with 6.6km to go. The Norwegian had an advantage of up to eight seconds but was in view of the chasing peloton on the finishing straight where the last 500mwere uphill.
Lily Williams launched a long sprint at the 300m mark and flew past Haugset to take the lead, but Balsamo went after her and came around with 120m to go to take another victory.
"Today was such a hard day in the final. I still need to recover. Once again, my team did an amazing job, they were pulling the whole day to close on the breakaway. And in the final, Niamh [Fisher-Black] and Bella [Holmgren], our GC leaders, were helping me. I knew this sprint because I did the recon, so I was ready, but I’m also a bit surprised and super happy," said Balsamo after the finish.
With the stage victory, Balsamo defended and extended her overall lead going into the stage 4 mountain time trial.
"My big goal today was to try to keep the pink jersey, and I was fighting, I gave it all. The climb was so hard for me, but I knew that it was a long way until the finish. I really tried to fight to stay with a group, then we came back, and everything was perfect," she said.
Balsamo pulled on pink again (Image credit: Getty Images)
How it unfolded
The 156km stage started in Bibione on the Adriatic coast and wound its way north through the Friuli. It finished with a 43.4km circuit around Buja, hometown of Jonathan Milan and Alessandro De Marchi, that included the steep 1.9km climb to Montenars.
Get The Leadout Newsletter
The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!
A breakaway of six riders got established early on the stage: Cristina Tonetti (Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi), Alison Jackson (St Michel-Preference Home-Auber 93), Eleonora Deotto (Mendelspeck E-Work), Barbara Guarischi (SD Worx-Protime), Nienke Veenhoven (Visma-Lease a Bike), and Marta Pavesi (Top Girls Fassa Bortolo) quickly built a three-minute gap.
The day's break (Image credit: Getty Images)
Fariba Hashimi (Vini Fantini-BePink) and Petra Zsankó (Aromitalia-Vaiano) briefly tried to bridge to the front group but soon gave up and dropped back to the peloton again. Tonetti won the intermediate sprint in Villa Manin di Passariano after 51km of racing, but as the first climb of the day came closer, the speed in the peloton picked up. A crash almost brought down Balsamo, but she managed to stay on the bike.
Jackson, Pavesi, and Tonetti dropped their three companions on the climb to Moruzzo with 60.4km to go, and Jackson took the mountain points at the top. The peloton was only 50 seconds behind, though, and as they passed through the finish in Buja, this gap was down to 33 seconds. Thalita De Jong (Human Powered Health) crashed hard but could finish the stage, Chiara Consonni (Canyon-SRAM) also.
The break was reeled in 26.1km from the finish, just before the Montenars climb started. Célia Gery (FDJ United-Suez) took charge and set a hard tempo. When Gery swung off 500m from the top, only Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime), Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez), Marlen Reusser (Movistar), Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ), Niamh Fisher-Black, Isabella Holmgren (both Lidl-Trek), Femke de Vries, Marion Bunel (both Visma-Lease a Bike), and Lore De Schepper (AG Insurance-Soudal) were left at the front of the race.
Géry's efforts split the race apart (Image credit: Getty Images)
300m from the top, Vollering’s acceleration reduced the group further as only Longo Borghini, Van der Breggen, and Reusser could follow, with De Vries and Fisher-Black a few seconds behind. Van der Breggen led the group over the mountain sprint and into the descent while Balsamo crested the climb 44 seconds behind.
De Vries, Fisher-Black, and Holmgren came back to the front in the descent, then De Schepper and Monica Trinca Colonel (Liv AlUla Jayco) returned before De Vries launched a short-lived attack. On a short climb through the city of Gemona del Friuli, the epicentre of the 1976 Friuli earthquake, a large chase group including maglia rosa Balsamo made it back to form a peloton of almost 50 riders.
The last 15km saw unsuccessful attacks from Pfeiffer Georgi (Picnic PostNL), Maya Kingma (Aromitalia Vaiano), Lauren Dickson (FDJ United-Suez), Silvia Persico (UAE Team ADQ), Nina Buijsman (Human Powered Health), Aude Biannic, Tota Magalhães (both Movistar), and Rosita Reijnhout (Visma-Lease a Bike) before Haugset got away.
Haugset on the attack (Image credit: Getty Images)
The 27-year-old Norwegian took a five-second advantage onto the final kilometre but was caught when Lily Williams accelerated from the peloton on the uphill finishing straight. Balsamo then passed Williams to win the stage.
Lukas Knöfler started working in cycling communications in 2013 and has seen the inside of the scene from many angles. Having worked as press officer for teams and races and written for several online and print publications, he has been Cyclingnews’ Women’s WorldTour correspondent since 2018.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
