The Italian champion Elisa Longo Borghini, one of the illustrious veterans of the international peloton, has been the winner of this Monday’s stage in the women’s Giro d’Italia, where she has prevailed in the sprint over the Dutch Movistar, Annemiek van Vleuten, who extends his lead overall.
The Movistar rider has once again been the protagonist of a stage with a profile more adapted to her conditions; because the 134-kilometer route, between Fidenza and Borgo Val di Taro, without being high mountain if it ended after two mountain passes, of the third category, propitious for her.
And despite the marking of the entire peloton, Van Vleuten and Movistar did as planned; After the work of the Spanish team, the Dutch woman attacked on the last ascents to go to the finish line, although she was “hit” by two runners, one of them another favourite, the Italian Elisa Longo, from Lidl Trek, and the American Verónica Ewers, from Education.
The three opened a “gap” over the peloton and went straight to the finish line, although Longo and Ewers knew how to leave Van Vleuten in front of the small group, so that he could not react in the final sprint of the stage.
That is why Longo, one of the best finishers in the world, knew when to attack and took the victory, with the North American second and the overall leader third, after three hours and 33 minutes of racing; a part of the peloton, with 30 runners, reached 40 seconds, with the Spanish Ane Santesteban and Mavi García included; the rest of the group arrived “shelled” for more than a minute.
Thus, overall, Van Vleuten maintains the pink jersey, with a 49-second advantage over Longo and 53 over Ewers, while Mavi García (Teqfind) remains sixth at 1.39, just ahead of Ane Santesteban (Jayco) who has the same disadvantage.
Tomorrow the Italian test faces the great acid test for Movistar, in defense of the leadership, since the stage between Salassa and Ceres is the most mountainous of the race, with three climbs in its 103 kilometers, one first category and two from third, the second less than ten kilometers from the finish line.
