Giro d’Italia Donne stage 2: Anna van der Breggen leads SD Worx domination to Prato Nevoso

Dutch team SD Worx grabbed control of the Giro d’Italia Donne on Saturday’s mountainous stage 2, going 1-2-3 in the stage with Anna van der Breggen scoring a dominant victory on the summit finish.

Van der Breggen, the reigning UCI road world champion, attacked inside 10km to go on the summit finish to take the stage and take control of the general classification.

“The climb was hard so there was a lot of suffering,” van der Breggen said. “Yeah, really nice, we had one task today and that was getting as much time as possible, so we all tried the best out of it and I think it’s an amazing result to go 1-2-3.”

Van der Breggen finished 1:22 ahead of her teammate, Asheleigh Moolman-Pasio, with her other teammate, Demi Vollering, finishing third, 1:51 behind.

The closest non-SD Worx rider to cross the line was Marta Cavalli (FDJ Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope), who rolled across the line on Vollering’s wheel, at 1:53 down.

With her finish van der Breggen is now in the driver’s seat to score her fourth GC victory at the Giro d’Italia Donne, which in years past was known as the Giro Rosa. Van der Breggen is the defending champion at the race, and she also won the overall in 2015 and 2017.

The stage to Prato Nevoso reshuffled the GC standings, with Trek-Segafredo falling away from the top of the leaderboard. The race saw the group stay together for much of the day, until 30km to go when four riders finally attacked into the day’s breakaway: Elise Chabbey (Canyon SRAM Racing), Kathrin Hammes (Ceratizit-WNT Pro Cycling), Coryn Rivera (Team DSM), and Sofia Bertizzolo (Liv Racing).

SD Worx rode aggressively on the 13km-long climb, which came at the end of the 131km stage. Niamh Fisher-Black attacked at the base of the climb to up the pace, and her effort shed multiple riders, among them overnight race leader Ruth Winder (Trek-Segafredo). Fisher-Black’s move was eventually brought back, but the surge opened the door for van der Breggen to launch her winning move.

Once van der Breggen went, the peloton was unable to bring her back, and in the final 7km she powered ahead to score her 60th career victory.