Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek) won stage 2 of the Giro d'Italia Women, beating Lara Gillespie (UAE Team ADQ) and Chiara Consonni (Canyon-SRAM) in a mass sprint in Caorle.
The break of the day was caught with 14km to go, setting up a bunch sprint. Balsamo was far down in the peloton until Lucinda Brand (Lidl-Trek) brought her to the front with 1.5km to go. On the finishing straight, Gillespie and Balsamo opened their sprints at the same time and finished in a dead heat behind Balsamo, who was fastest to the line.
One day after being awarded the stage 1 victory and the maglia rosa after the disqualification of Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) for an underweight bike, Balsamo could celebrate at the finish, also defending her maglia rosa for the GC leader.
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"I have been waiting for this win so much, this win is for my uncle. I'm just so happy. I want to say a big thank you to my teammates because they did an amazing job the whole day. And then I just did a really good sprint. It was an amazing day," said Balsamo after the stage.
With Wiebes out of the race, the sprint finish was more open, and Balsamo was mindful of that.
"I was just completely focused on the finish line and I pushed until the end because I knew that everyone could come from the back, they are so strong," she said.
Balsamo now goes into the hillier stage 3 with a 20-second buffer on most of the peloton.
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"I know tomorrow's stage quite well because I did the recon. I think it's going to be a hard one because the final is quite hilly. But as I said, I have a really good team, and we trust each other," the maglia rosa finished.
How it unfolded
Elisa Balsamo lines up in the maglia rosa (Image credit: Getty Images)
Eleonora La Bella (Aromitalia Vaiano) and the Top Girls Fassa Bortolo duo of Elisa De Vallier and Sara Luccon attacked early on the 156-kilometre stage to form the break of the day. Giorgia Serena (Mendelspeck E-Work), Fariba Hashimi (Vini Fantini-BePink), and Josie Nelson (Picnic PostNL) formed a chase group but never made it to the front trio and were instead caught on the day’s only climb, the Muro di Ca’ del Poggio after 66km.
The front group had been more than six minutes ahead of the peloton an hour into the stage, but this had been reduced to around two minutes by the time they reached the climb. La Bella was first over the top and will wear the maglia azzurra, the blue mountain jersey, on stage 3.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Turning southeast after the hilly mid-section of the stage, the peloton allowed the escapees to get up to 2:25 minutes ahead again before taking up the chase at the 30km mark. With Lidl-Trek and Movistar doing most of the work, the gap was quickly reduced, and the break was caught 14km from the line.
On the run-in to Caorle, the sprint trains jostled for position. Italian champion Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ) brought her team to the front just before a roundabout with 3.8km to go and then pulled the peloton for over two kilometres before swinging off 1.6km from the line.
Balsamo had been further back in the pack but was now brought to the front by Brand who led the peloton onto the final kilometre. UAE Team ADQ’s Silvia Persico and Eleonora Gasparrini brought the race onto the finishing straight. Gillespie and Balsamo backed off a bit, letting Arlenis Sierra (Movistar) take Persico’s wheel.
When the latter swung off inside the 400-metre mark, Margaux Vigié (Visma-Lease a Bike) started her lead-out, with Sierra and Consonni jumping on her wheel. From 8th position, Charlotte Kool (Fenix-Premier Tech) started a long sprint, but Gillespie launched off Vigié almost at the same time.
Balsamo came out of Gillespie’s slipstream at the 200-metre mark, and as Kool faded, the Italian pushed into the lead with 80 metres to go to win. Gillespie beat Consonni to second place in a photo-finish.
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.
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