Elisa Longo Borghini optimistic about Giro d’Italia route as she targets healthy 2024

After a month off the bike the Lidl-Trek rider is ready to bounce back as she targets the Ardennes, Grand Tours, Olympics and Worlds

17:00, Saturday 16th December 2023

Daniel Benson

Editor in Chief

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Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek) at the Tour de France Femmes in July

After a stop-start season, Elisa Longo Borghini’s (Lidl-Trek) main hope for 2024 is to remain healthy.

The Italian started 2023 with a bang, winning a stage and the overall at the UAE Tour, but despite numerous placings in the Spring Classics, two national titles and a stage in the Giro d’Italia Women, it was a season of hard knocks for the 32-year-old.

She suffered a bout of COVID, endured several crashes that forced her out of the Giro and Tour, and then had an infection before eventually pulling the plug on her year at the Tour de Romandie in September.

After a month off the bike, and getting married in the off-season, Longo Borghini has her eyes on next year, with her overriding ambition being simply racing with a clean bill of health and no major setbacks.

“First of all, I’d like to be healthy. I want to be in a position where if I’m losing a race it’s at full health and not because I’m sick. I just want to have stable health, and the Ardennes are the first major objective. Then I'll target one of the three Grand Tours, the Olympic Games and then the World Championships,” she told GCN at the recent Lidl-Trek training camp.

“Before getting COVID, and it was the first time I had it, I was in my best shape ever. After that and all the injuries and illnesses, I never pushed the same numbers. I was of course in good shape but never at my top form and there was always something holding me back. The key for 2024 is being healthy but this year I had sepsis and COVID. Now I’m back from a very long off-season and I’ve been back on the bike for three and a bit weeks. I’m far from my best shape but I have time to reset, rebuild and race.”

GCN spoke to Longo Borghini just hours after RCS announced the route for the Giro d’Italia Women. The eight-day stage race runs between July 7-14 and starts with a 14.6km time trial before ending with two mammoth mountain stages. A two-time podium finisher, Longo Borghini kept her cards close to her chest when discussing her objectives for the race but she hinted that her home race would form one of her key objectives as either a leader or a super domestique.

Giro d’Italia Women 2024 full route:

Stage 1: Brescia - Brescia (14.6km) (ITT)
Stage 2: Sirmione - Volta Mantovana (102km)
Stage 3: Sabbioneta - Toano (111km)
Stage 4: Imola - Urbino (133km)
Stage 5: Frontone to Foligno (111km)
Stage 6: San Bendetto del Tronto - Chieti (155km)
Stage 7: Lanciano - Blockhaus (123km)
Stage 8: Pescara - L’Aquila (109km)

“It’s a Giro where you really can’t lose your focus because all the stages are tricky apart from the second one. For all the rest, you really need to be in the game because you lose the risk of losing time in a lot of places. The last weekend is difficult, the hardest part of the race, but the opening time trial is also key. You need to start well in the Giro, and I really like the route. I’m optimistic,” Longo Borghini told GCN.

“It’s a race that suits me but I also have strong teammates so I’ll follow our plan. I’ll adapt to that because if the team decide that someone else should do the GC then that’s fine. I’ll have other chances but it’s a race that attracts me a lot.”

When asked to compare the route for the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, and decide which race suited her best, Longo Borghini said: “I don’t know. If I now think about it then both are similar and have complicated stages. There are uphill finishes in both, so the parcours are similar but as an Italian, I would always choose the Giro.

"But as I said, I’ll follow the plan from the team. Overall we’re a strong team and if we’re back at our full potential, after a lot of bad luck last year, then we’re very strong. We can play the game in every race that we’re attending.”

Longo Borghini will start her season at the UAE Tour in February, where she will seek to defend her overall title from 2023.