Giro Rosa: Van der Breggen wins stage 9

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Anna van der Breggen (Boels Dolmans) won stage 9 of the Giro d'Italia Internazionale Femminile on Saturday – a hard mountain-top finish at Malga Montasio. Race leader Annemiek van Vleuten (Mitchelton-Scott) had attacked to drop the road race world champion on the steepest part of the climb, but Van der Breggen came back to Van Vleuten in the final kilometre and passed the maglia rosa to win the stage.

"We came here to win the Giro," said Van der Breggen after the finish. "Pretty early, it became clear that that wouldn't work, as Annemiek was really strong this week. But I've felt better and better as the race has gone on, so the only thing you can do is to try. I tried to win a stage, and am really happy that it worked."

Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (CCC-Liv) and Van Vleuten's Mitchelton-Scott teammate Amanda Spratt finished the stage 1:38 minutes behind the winner, putting Spratt in third place overall. With only one stage to go and a gap of 3:50 minutes to Van der Breggen, Van Vleuten now looks the certain winner of the 2019 Giro Rosa.

How it happened

The 125.5-kilometre stage started with a flat circuit around the starting town of Gemona del Friuli before heading into the Carnic Alps for the mountaintop finish at Malga Montasio on an altitude of 1546 metres. The road started to gently go upwards with 20 km to go, the final 11 km then climbed at an average of eight percent including a 20-percent stretch on the last four kilometres.

The break of the day went away after 20 km. Hannah Barnes (Canyon-SRAM), Nicole Steigenga (BePink), Maaike Boogaard (BTC City Ljubljana), Kelly Van den Steen (Lotto Soudal), Malgorzata Jasinska (Movistar), Kseniia Dobrynina (Servetto-Piumate-Beltrami TSA), and Rachel Neylan (Team Virtu Cycling) had an advantage of 2:12 minutes 50 km into the race, but this had come down to 1:27 minutes with 25 km to go.

CCC-Liv took up the chase, and the breakaway was reeled in 14 km from the finish. On the lower slopes, Team Sunweb controlled what was left of the peloton, then Van Vleuten increased the pace with 10 km to go which fractured the group.

Soon, only four riders were left in front, Van Vleuten being accompanied by Mitchelton-Scott teammate Amanda Spratt, Lucinda Brand (Team Sunweb), and Moolman-Pasio. Van der Breggen had missed initially missed the move but bridged to the front with the help of her teammate Katie Hall who dropped back after that.

Inside 8 km to go, Brand and Moolman-Pasio lost contact, and Spratt also had to let go seven kilometres from the line, leaving only Van Vleuten and Van der Breggen at the front of the race.

With the gaps to the rest of the race increasing, Van Vleuten attacked just before the steepest part of the climb and dropped Van der Breggen. Although Van Vleuten quickly opened a 15-second advantage on Van der Breggen, the world champion rode a steady tempo in low gears and controlled the gap while Van Vleuten looked at her limit grinding a high gear on the steep gradients.

The distance was still ten seconds with 1.5 km to go, but Van der Breggen could accelerate again on the final kilometre, passing a spent Van Vleuten with 400 metres from the line to win the stage. Further behind, Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo) held off Soraya Paladin (Alé Cipollini) and Erica Magnaldi (WNT-Rotor) to defend the blue jersey for the best Italian. Juliette Labous (Team Sunweb) also held on to the white jersey for the best U23 rider.

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