Giro d'Italia Women: Chiara Consonni outsprints Kopecky to stage 2 victory in dramatic finale

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Chiara Consonni (UAE Team ADQ) won stage 2 of the Giro d'Italia Women, beating Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) and Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek) on a slightly uphill finish in Volta Mantovana.

The stage was dominated by a breakaway from Ana Vitória 'Tota' Magalhães (BePink-Bongioanni), who went away with Alessia Missiaggia (Top Girls Fassa Bortolo) only seven kilometres into the 110km stage. Magalhães dropped her companion on the first of two ascents to Cavriani on the final circuit and held off the peloton for a long time, only being caught in the penultimate kilometre.

A last-minute attack by Anouska Koster (Uno-X Mobility) was reeled in with 500 metres to go, setting up the bunch sprint finish. Kopecky launched her sprint off the wheel of Cédrine Kerbaol (Ceratizit-WNT) and quickly took the lead, but Consonni jumped from the World Champion's wheel and came around in the last metres to win.

Stage 1 winner Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek) keeps the maglia rosa as overall leader after finishing the stage safely in the bunch.

"I have no words, really. The breakaway went out to six minutes, and we were a little bit scared, but the team was super, they did a really, really good job," Consonni said after a career-third Giro stage victory.

"We knew that the final was hard, I saw the crashes the first time we passed the finish line. I really was super focused on my sprint because I know that I don’t have a lot of opportunities [at this Giro], but really, I did as well as possible, I think."

Looking ahead to Tuesday’s stage 3 and the first summit finish, the stage winner joked that the race should cancel the stage: “Rest day! No, I hope for the team, because we went here with a strong team, and I hope that this is only the first one."

How it unfolded

After their early attack, Magalhães and Missiaggia quickly built a lead of over a minute. About 30km into the stage, the Isolmant-Premac-Vittoria duo of Beatrice Rossato and Valeria Curnis went on the chase as the peloton was still taking it easy.

At the 50-kilometre mark, Magalhães and Missiaggia were 3:40 minutes ahead of the two chasers while the peloton was a whopping 6:28 minutes behind. Missiaggia won the day’s only intermediate sprint, and the peloton was still trailing by over six minutes when the sprinters’ teams started to chase in earnest with 40km to go.

The final of the stage consisted of one-and-a-half laps of a finishing circuit with a fourth-category climb to the hilltop village of Cavriana. Magalhães left Missiaggia behind on the first ascent, taking maximum mountains points at the top. The peloton brought back Rossato and Curnis just before the climb, and Justine Ghekiere (AG Insurance-Soudal), Alessia Vigilia (FDJ-Suez), and Dominika Włodarczyk (UAE Team ADQ) then attacked in a bid for the remaining QOM point, continuing their move on the descent.

Passing the finish line with 22.1km to go, the Brazilian champion was still 3:10 minutes ahead of the peloton, with Missiaggia in between. Ghekiere, Vigilia, and Włodarczyk had been caught, and 17km from the finish, with Magalhães still 2:58 minutes ahead, Marta Jaskulska (Ceratizit-WNT) went on a solo chase.

Jaskulska passed Missiaggia with 15km to go but was herself reeled in on the Cavriana climb where Niamh Fisher-Black (SD Worx-Protime) pushed hard to reduce the gap to Magalhães. Nonetheless, the Brazilian still had 1:33 minutes in hand at the top with only 9.9 kilometres to go.

However, as Canyon-SRAM, Lidl-Trek, UAE Team ADQ, and especially SD Worx-Protime went all-in on the chase, Magalhães’ advantage quickly went down. 40 seconds ahead at the five-kilometre mark, only 14 seconds remained with 3km to go, and the Brazilian could sense that she would be caught – but she also knew that she would take the blue mountains jersey.

Koster jumped from the peloton with 2.2km to go and passed Magalhães with 1.8km left to race, with the peloton just a few seconds behind. When Koster was caught 500 metres from the line, Jaskulska took over to lead out Kerbaol. Kopecky quickly came past, but Consonni had the strongest sprint to win the stage.

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