Sarah Gigante blog: Keeping that never-give-up attitude in the Vuelta Femenina

So it’s Wednesday evening now and we’ve just got to the hotel after a tough stage 4 of the Vuelta Femenina, which was made up of 142km from Molina de Aragón to Zaragoza.

It was hard today, right from the start. The neutral zone and first couple of kilometres were relatively easy, but after that, it was full gas for the entire stage. I lost contact with the front of the peloton once the echelons began in the first 20km, but I was lucky that my group worked really well together and we kept catching riders along the way. We just kept that never-give-up attitude and eventually we caught the second group on the road. My DSs before the stage told me to be like Pippi Longstocking (well - they said the Dutch name, Pippi Langkous!) and to never give up, and that’s exactly what I did.

Although it seemed close at times, unfortunately we never made contact with the front group, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying. After a small but sharp climb 80km into the stage, I sadly didn’t have any teammates with me left in this chasing group, but I kept on swapping off at the front in the final 50km so that I could minimise the gap to the top GC riders.

Read more: Vuelta Femenina GC: Vollering and Niewiadoma gain, Realini loses in stage 4 crosswinds

Of course, it is disappointing to lose two minutes to some of the other GC riders today, before we even hit the mountains, but at the same time, I’m quite happy with how the stage went because I learnt a ton about riding in echelons today and I also know that it could have been a whole lot worse in terms of time loss. I’m also super happy to see Kristen Faulkner take the win. As my former teammate and housemate, I know that she’s not only an amazing rider but is also a wonderful person, and this victory is so well deserved.

Coming into the Vuelta, my aim for the first half of the race was always to minimise time loss and stay out of trouble. I’ve not had a chance to test out my climbing legs yet, but my teammates have done an amazing job at keeping me safe and looking out for me so that I could do my best in achieving those two goals. They’ve been so helpful and encouraging, and then in stage 3 we also had Mireia Benito in a solo breakaway all day, which was inspiring to see and resulted in a nice white combative jersey for her. She went all out for the win and nearly got it, and now she has some points on the table when it comes to the QOM Classification.

My overall goals in the race don’t really change too much after today. I’m still optimistic, because the race is long and we’re only halfway there. I’m not the only GC rider who lost time today, and many riders will want to attack on the hard climbs coming up, for both GC and stage ambitions. For me, it’s still about taking it day-by-day. Being nearly three minutes down is a lot, but the race isn’t over yet and I’ll keep racing the way I want to race, which is hard. I’ll give it my all, and that doesn’t change whether I’m going for the GC or stages.

Read more: Vuelta Femenina: Ranking the GC contenders

My highlight over the first four days has been the sense of teamwork and how we are all striving for the same goals while having fun together. Because of this, my favourite day so far was the first day, when we raced the team time trial. As a squad, we were all really excited to line up together for the first stage and take on that challenge. We were so passionate about it, and you could feel it in the air during our two pre-race training sessions too. We just wanted to get stuck in, even though we had no idea what to expect because it was our first TTT together. Some of us hadn’t even raced this discipline before, but that feeling of sharing the nerves, the suffering and the touch of disappointment together was second to none and I can’t wait for the next time we get to do one.

It’s time to head down for dinner now, but I’m already so excited for the harder stages that start tomorrow, with the first uphill finish. It’s going to be a wonderful day and definitely a tough but fun four days to come!

For everything you need to know about the 2024 Vuelta Femenina, from the key information to this year's route and start list, be sure to check out our dedicated race hub.