Going into the Giro d’Italia the general classification was always going to be a bit wide open, but with only one stage remaining and only one second separating the top two riders, the race has entered uncharted waters. What’s more, neither women contending for pink are your typical Giro winners. They’ve both won Paris-Roubaix Femmes and the Tour of Flanders, but the Giro? It’s like we’ve stepped back in time, to the days of Marianne Vos winning regardless of terrain.
The only rider everyone knew was on the form coming into the Giro was Elisa Longo Borghini, who’d won nationals solo shortly before the race. SD Worx-Protime was relatively and unusually unknown, especially without Marlen Reusser who had been targeting the pink jersey earlier in the year. The team was firm before the start that they were not targetting GC but stages … sure sure. The strongest climbing team on the startlist was Canyon-SRAM, but they had a young team, could they compete against the experience of Lidl-Trek?
Even after the double doozy of Passo Lanciano and Blockhaus, the fight is not even close to over. In the past 10 years, the narrowest gap between first and second was Marianne Vos and Pauline Ferrand-Prevot in 2014. Vos won the race by 14 seconds, but the pair were on the same team. Third that year was Anna van der Breggen 1:32 back, but again, she was teammates with Vos and Ferrand-Prevot on Rabo Liv.
In 2009 Claudia Lichtenberg, the last non-Dutch/non-American to win the Giro, bested Mara Abbott by 30 seconds. That was the last time two non-teammates came within a minute of each other in the final classification.
We all knew this Giro was going to be different. The first edition organized by RCS, the course set by the new handlers was a lot better for a drawn-out fight than years previously where the race was all but wrapped up after two stages. This year, the favourites had to wait for the big climbs.
In terms of the GC, without Annemiek van Vleuten or Demi Vollering, the best climbers of the last six Grand Tours, it was all to play for.
Who could have predicted a one-second difference, due mostly to bonus seconds on the finish line, after the race ascended Blockhaus on Saturday? The fight for pink on the brutal seventh stage, won by Neve Bradbury who was already over two minutes down on GC, came down to a sprint between first and second overall for six and four bonus seconds. The outcome? Lotte Kopecky claimed six seconds while Longo Borghini claimed four.
As it turns out Longo Borghini and Kopecky are pretty evenly matched on a 17.7 km long climb. Both Paris-Roubaix Femmes avec Zwift winners, on paper Longo Borghini is the better climber but that’s mostly down to the fact that she’s tried to be. Kopecky was only ever a track rider who came over to the road until last year’s Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. Now it would appear that she too can ride a steady pace up a climb.
What could have cracked them both would have been a climber like Vollering who can make repeated attacks. Each dig would have distanced both Kopecky and Longo Borghini. When Bradbury attacked for a second time within a kilometre the pair didn’t even flinch, they knew what they had to do. We’ve seen Longo Borghini ride to third at the Vuelta Femenina this year by riding her own race while everyone around her fights for seconds. She did the same thing today. The only problem is, that Kopecky is the same style of climber.
Bradbury’s time loss of 1:47 in the opening time trial also allowed Kopecky and Longo Borghini to worry only about each other. By the time the Australian attacked, the rest of their rivals were gone. It was just those two. And try as she might, Longo Borghini couldn’t shake Kopecky. On the line, we saw just how evenly matched they were. Longo Borghini couldn’t drop Kopecky on the climb, and Kopecky couldn’t put any real distance between herself and the Italian when sprinting.
Prior to the race, there was perhaps not much thought put into just how evenly matched these two are. As Kopecky’s climbing has improved, so has Longo Borghini’s punch. Never forget in 2022 when the Italian won the Tour of Britain in the final sprint of the final stage by taking third behind Lorena Wiebes and Clara Copponi, and with it enough bonus seconds to pass leader Grace Brown in the overall. How much did she win by? Just one second.
Longo Borghini has always been an all-around type rider. Not standing out in any speciality but good enough at everything to win races here and there. She won Paris-Roubaix with a long-range solo attack, but she’s twice finished third overall at the Giro before. She’s about as versatile as a rider can get.
As they look ahead to the final stage the goal for both teams is simple. At this point, it’s clear that Longo Borghini will not be able to crack Kopecky, so Lidl-Trek will want a break to win the stage, and the bonus seconds. Should a group containing both riders come to the finale fighting to win, the race will go to Kopecky. A rider who will in a few weeks time be contesting Olympic medals on the track. If a break does go, all Longo Borghini has to do is hold onto Kopecky’s wheel and she will be the first Italian to win the Giro since Fabiana Luperini in 2008.
There are only 117 km left in the Giro and the race is far from over, but at the end of Sunday’s stage, there will be a rider in this decade with both Paris-Roubaix Femmes and the Giro d’Italia Women on the palmarès. That’s women’s cycling for you.
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