Giro d’Italia Donne stage 4: Anna van der Breggen takes another stage victory and extends GC lead

Anna van der Breggen has proved again that she is the world’s best time trialist.

The SD Worx rider finished Monday’s fourth stage of the Giro d’Italia Donne in 24:58, with a lead of one minute and five seconds ahead of teammate Demi Vollering. Team BikeExchange’s Grace Brown followed in third at 26:14.

https://twitter.com/GreenEDGEteam/status/1412061528501719041

“It was a really nice TT and a good practice for the Olympics which are coming up,” van der Breggen said in the post-race interview. “I think also time trials like this, we don’t have a lot, actually we don’t’ have any at all. I think it was a really good TT to have.”

Also read: Everything you need to know about the Giro d’Italia Donne

At 11.2km in length, Monday’s mountain time trial presented an unrelenting uphill ride from Formazza to Cascate del Toce. It would be the perfect parcours for time trial world champion van der Breggen, who chugged comfortably along the course clad in the maglia rosa skinsuit. Van der Breggen rode at an amazing average of 26.9 km/hour during which she was almost entirely tucked in the aero position.

For most of the stage, Brown (Team BikeExchange) maintained a sizeable lead. Her time was safe until Vollering put 11 seconds on the Australian. For a moment, Vollering’s teammate, 5x South African national TT champ Ashleigh Moolman Pasio looked to have secured a spot on the podium as well, but ended up fourth on the day.

Looking forward to stage 5

After the measured efforts of Monday’s time trial, Tuesday’s stage will give sprinters a chance to shine.

Tuesday’s pan-flat stage 5 to Carugate is the first real chance for the sprinters at this year’s Giro d’Italia to have their day. The 122km race begins in Milano. After 45km of racing, riders arrive at the final circuits in Carugate where there are three intermediate sprints — one upon entering the circuits and two more on subsequent laps before the last-lap finishes at Carugate.

The day will likely end in a bunch sprint.

The Classifica Generale after the ITT

1⃣ @AnnavdBreggen 7:40'53
2⃣ @ashleighcycling +02:51
3⃣ @demivollering +03:03 pic.twitter.com/buaBDMlCTN

— Team SD Worx (@teamsdworx) July 5, 2021

 

The GC remains firmly in the hands of SD Worx, with van der Breggen leading Moolman Pasio by 2:51 and Vollering only trailing the South African by 12 seconds.

However, van der Breggen is not counting her chickens before they hatch.

“I’m in a very luxurious position to have the girls around me and it’s really nice to race with them,” she said. “But still we’re only halfway and you still need to have good legs. There are also flat stages coming up and some hard climbing stages so hopefully it stays like this, but for sure, we have to fight for it.

“We’ve been looking until today and then we need to see how the classification is,” she said. “Also, with Chantal or Elena, they are good on flat stages, and they want to attack also. With some mountain stages coming up, the other girls are doing great. So, if there are opportunities for sure. We also go for stage victories but for general classification, of course.”