Giro Rosa: Banks wins stage 4 hilltop finish

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Lizzy Banks (Equipe Paule Ka) won stage 4 of the Giro Rosa, attacking her breakaway partner Eugenia Bujak (Ale BTC Ljubljana) on the final rough cobbled finishing climb into Tivoli to take a solo victory. Bujak kept Banks within sight on the narrow winding climb to the finish but faded to second. 

It is Banks' second stage win at the Giro Rosa as she broke through with her first professional victory during stage 8 last year. The British rider, who only started racing in 2015, rode off the front with Bujak for more than half the stage, the longest in the Giro Rosa, and the pair came into the final 10 kilometres with an unassailable gap of nearly five minutes.

That gap narrowed as the overall contenders attacked, but even then there ended up being a substantial gap to defending champion, Annemiek van Vleuten (Mitchelton-Scott), who continued to keep a tight grip on the pink jersey by coming over the line in third place.

“I’m super happy that I had really good legs in the final,” said Van Vleuten after the stage. “I was a bit nervous about losing time maybe, because it was a really long stretch, but apparently I did the opposite.”

Banks finished seven seconds ahead of the Slovenian rider, Bujak, and 1:10 ahead of van Vleuten, though having started the day down 7:14, Banks was not an overall threat.

Stage 4 ended up being another tough day in a Giro Rosa that was expected to be close fought, given it lacked the usual dose of long mountain climbs and time trials. Instead there have been plenty of shorter climbs, heat, rough road surfaces, steep gradients and, in stage 4, a lengthy route with a finishing sting to contend with. The 170.3 kilometres route from Assisi to Tivoli exceeded the UCI recommended maximum by ten kilometres.

The World Champion managed to gain even more distance on her main rivals, particularly with Anna van der Breggen (Boels Dolmans) finishing in 12th place. Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM), who finished fifth on the stage behind Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek Segafredo), now moves up into second on the GC ahead of two-time Giro Rosa winner Van der Breggen and Longo Borghini shuffled up two places in the rankings to sixth.

How it unfolded

The peloton rolled out from Assisi into another scorching day, sticking together until more than 35 kilometres into the race. When the climbing started so did the action.

There was a flat start to the long stage, but that didn’t last with most of the climbing through the lumpy middle section, including one category 3 climb in Arrone with 100 kilometres of racing to go. A downhill run then began with about 20 kilometres of racing left, harshly interrupted by that punchy final climb to the line in Tivoli. The gradients ramped up to over 10% during those final 1.5 kilometres of the five kilometre finishing climb.

Ruth Winder (Trek-Segafredo) put in the first attack and quickly stretched the gap to over 30 seconds. However, a long solo break wasn’t on the cards for the US Champion, who was reeled back in at about 115km to go.

As the race ticked down to 108 kilometres to go, the ascent toward the top of the categorised climb in Arrone began. The steep and rough road immediately took a toll. First riders were dropped off the back and then, after a suspenseful coverage silence caused by race radio interference, we found that Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope) had led over the top of the climb to take the mountain points, followed by Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) and Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo).

At 86 kilometres to go, it emerged that Eugenia Bujak (Ale BTC Ljubljana) and British rider Lizzy Banks (Equipe Paule Ka) had carved out a gap. By 70 km to go the pair were more then four minutes ahead of the peloton, with Silvia Valsechi (BePink) and 2012 World Championships silver medallist Rachel Neylan (Cronos Casa Dorado) in the gap chasing. The chasing pair were swept up by the bunch, but the lead of Banks and Bujak continued to grow, nearly reaching six minutes at the 40 kilometre to go mark.

As the riders approached Tivoli, which is just 30 kilometres from Rome, the gap was still holding. When they reached the final 10 kilometres with nearly five minutes, the question was not if they would win, but which one of them would take victory.

It is the second time Banks has been heading to fight it out for victory from a break of two in a Women’s WorldTour race recently, but unlike when she was with Lizzie Deignan (Trek Segafredo) at GP de Plouay, this time Banks ended up on the top step.

Looking at the jerseys Uttrup-Ludwig is now in green, having taking the lead of the mountain classification, while van Vleuten retains the points jersey and Mikayla Harvey (Equipe Paule Ka) the white jersey of the best young rider.

Watch the Giro Rosa stage 4 video highlights below.

Visit Cyclingnews' dedicated women's page for full reports, results, news, features and galleries from the 2020 Giro Rosa.