Elisa Longo Borghini loses time after heavy Giro d’Italia Donne crash

Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek) suffered a dramatic crash on the final descent of stage 5 of the Giro d’Italia Donne, overshooting a corner and crashing over a grassy and rocky mound.

It took some time for Longo Borghini, who won stage 4, to get out of the ditch and back on her bike, but she was able to start riding again.

The Italian finished the stage in Ceres, rolling over the line smiling but with blood on her face, flanked by teammate Shirin van Anrooij who had ushered her leader from the point of her crash to the finish.

The pair rode at a gentle pace towards the finish, rather than trying to limit any time losses.

Second on GC at the start of the day, Longo Borghini finished almost eight minutes down, dropping out of the top 10 overall. Lidl-Trek have yet to release any more details of any injuries, or whether she will start stage 6 on Wednesday.

After going clear from the GC group with pink jersey Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) on the penultimate climb, the Dutch rider dropped Longo Borghini over the top of the ascent, and the Italian was pushing hard to try to chase back on on the descent.

Moments prior to Longo Borghini’s crash, Van Vleuten herself had slid out on the same corner and suffered a small crash onto grass, but was back riding quickly and seemed uninjured. She went on to finish second on the stage behind Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon-SRAM), pulling out more time on her GC rivals.

With Longo Borghini out of contention, Trek’s overall hopes will now lie with Gaia Realini, who moved up five places on GC on stage 5 to sit fifth overall, 3:14 down on Van Vleuten. The team also have the likes of Van Anrooij and the returning Lizzie Deignan to chase stages.