Giro d’Italia Donne: Annemiek van Vleuten completes hat trick with stage 7 victory

Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) rode to her third victory of the Giro d’Italia Donne on stage 7, after the last of a string of attacks finally stuck and she went solo in the final 2km of the uphill finish to further tighten her grip on the race.

Chasers Juliette Labous (dsm-firmenich) and Gaia Realini (Lidl-Trek) rounded out the podium in second and third, 20 seconds behind the winner, after a valiant effort following the maglia rosa’s attacks on the penultimate climb.

The trio of Van Vleuten, Labous and Realini went clear of their GC competitors on the first of two back-to-back climbs that made up the finale, with the two young riders working with the maglia rosa in the hopes of improving their own overall positions.

On the last section of climbing, though, Van Vleuten launched the inevitable attack and went clear of her companions, finally snapping the elastic to climb away to victory.

Despite a challenging parcours, the peloton were happy to take much of the stage fairly easy after a difficult seven days of racing, and the only early moves to speak of were short solo efforts from Elena Pirrone (Israel Premier Tech Roland) and Anouska Koster (Uno-X), before the GC action kicked off in the final 20km.

“That was a nice one because it was really a team performance,” Van Vleuten said at the finish. “Maybe the first stage [win] was not but today the team was perfectly on point to defend the jersey. Everyone did their job and it’s super nice to finish it off. I ended up in a really nice position in the final, finally I got Gaia Realini in front of me instead of on my wheel. They had to work for the podium, so it was a perfect situation for us.

“You can never plan something like this. It was the plan to have a teammate in the front, to give an opportunity to Paula Patiño or Liane Lippert if they could get in a break, or if it was all together it was for me on the final climb, so that was planned, because yesterday I saw this beautiful finish.”

Racing recap

After two hectic days on the Giro d’Italia Donne, it was a slightly more relaxed start to Thursday’s stage. There were very few notable attack attempts, and the peloton was all together going over the top of the first climb, the Passo del Ginestro, which topped out after 38km of racing. Though the main bulk of the peloton stayed together, a number of riders were distanced early after a tough week of racing.

On a short rise after the top of the Ginestro, a rider finally got away in the form of Elena Pirrone (Israel Premier Tech Roland) and was allowed a lead of just under a minute.

With 50km to go, the race hit the climb to Il Vigneto and the slopes saw Pirrone’s lead tumble rapidly, and the Italian was caught around halfway up the ascent. The catch spurred on a series of counterattacks, with Évita Muzic (FDJ-SUEZ) the first to push on with Niamh Fisher-Black (SD Worx) on her wheel. This acceleration didn’t go clear but forced a split in the bunch as the weaker climbers couldn’t hold on. Over the top of the climb, Fem van Empel (Jumbo-Visma) jumped off the front to score some more mountain points after taking maximum over the Passo del Ginestro earlier in the stage.

On the plateau after the climb, Anouska Koster (Uno-X) took advantage of a lull to go solo, getting a minute up the road as the main group were happy to relax somewhat ahead of the 15km finishing ascent - a climb followed by a flat followed by another climb to the line. Van Empel and Silvia Persico (UAE Team ADQ) tried to attack on the descent, but Movistar were keen to shut that down and brought the pair back quickly. The biggest name to try to go on the attack was Niamh Fisher-Black, but she had Movistar’s Liane Lippert locked on her wheel as Movistar and Trek made sure everything stayed together.

Koster was still away with 20km to go, but her lead was shrinking as Movistar started to set it up for the uphill finish. It was practically a full lead-out into the base of the climb, with the likes of EF Education-TIBCO-SVB, dsm-firmenich and Movistar all lining up on the front of the bunch. Lizzie Deignan hit the climb first with Gaia Realini on her wheel, but soon the accelerations started as Fisher-Black once again dug in, drawing out the purest climbers. Four kilometres from the top of the first section of climbing, Mavi García (Liv Racing TeqFind) got a gap, going 25 seconds clear of the elite group. With 1.5km left to climb, maglia rosa Van Vleuten made her move, but Realini was able to close the gap and bring Juliette Labous (dsm-firmenich) onto her wheel as the trio caught García.

Going past García, Van Vleuten accelerated again but struggled to shake Realini and Labous and the three were all together over the top of the climb. Behind, second overall Veronica Ewers (EF Education-TIBCO-SVB) was fading and watching her podium spot go away from her. In the lead group, Annemiek van Vleuten stopped working in the final 6km, forcing Realini and Labous to work, who were themselves improving their GC positions, but perhaps carrying the world champion towards the stage win.

Hitting the final 2.6km climb, the leaders remained all together, but with 1.7km to go, Annemiek van Vleuten launched her final attack, and this time Labous and Realini could not follow. The maglia rosa rode away to take her third win of the race and further cement her overall lead, whilst behind Labous attacked Realini to take second, 13 seconds down, as the Italian rounded out the podium, 20 seconds adrift on the winner. The chasing group split apart on the final climb, with Liane Lippert finishing strongest to take fourth.

Thanks to their efforts on stage 7, Labous and Realini move up to second and third on GC, whilst Ewers slips off the podium and into fourth. With just two punchy stages left in Sardinia this weekend, the general classification looks close to being finalised, with Van Vleuten almost certain to take the pink jersey home as her lead approaches four minutes.