The gaps on the overall standings may be tight heading into stage 7 of the Giro d'Italia Women but the climb to Blockhaus, along with the tough route preceding it, is set to blow open the battle for the maglia rosa on Saturday.
Resilient climbers that find themselves on a good day could charge up the standings, given there is 3,600m of elevation gain across the 120km stage, while a bad day could quickly decimate even the best-positioned rider’s GC chances.
“It’s going to be a brutal day,” said Canyon-SRAM DS Magnus Bäckstedt in a matter-of-fact assessment of the stage ahead.
The race sets out from Lanciano and into a succession of short punchy climbs through the opening 60km of racing, which means the metres of ascent are starting to rack up even before the mountains hit. When they do, at the halfway mark, first on the agenda is the Passo Lanciano – a climb that just cuts off the final few kilometres of the Blockhaus but still, according to the race road book, delivers a category 1 ascent of 11.3km at 8.5% with a maximum gradient of 14%.
A long descent and brief dip into the valley then leads into the headline climb of the event, Blockhaus, which follows the route up the Passo Lanciano but then also adds another 5.2 kilometres for a total climb of 16.5 km at 7.9%. At the top of the ascent in the Maiella National Park, the winner of the stage – and perhaps even the overall – will be crowned.
Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek) has hung onto the maglia rosa since the very first stage of racing, with world champion Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) just three seconds behind ahead of stage 7, Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (FDJ SUEZ) 38 seconds back and last year’s runner up Juliette Labous (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) at 49 seconds.
Then the wearer of the white jersey, Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon-SRAM) sits in fifth at 1:06 back while Kim Le Court (AG Insurance Soudal) is at 1:28, just a second ahead of seventh-placed Niamh Fisher-Black who made clear her climbing form when she won stage 3. Mavi García (Liv AlUla Jayco), Pauliena Rooijakkers (Fenix Deceuninck) and Gaia Realini (Lidl-Trek) then round out a top ten that is all well under two minutes off the race leader, in fact even eleventh placed Neve Bradbury (Canyon-SRAM) is just 2:02 off the top spot.
Still, it’s a tally that could look very different at the end of stage 7. There is the cumulative fatigue of a hot and challenging six days of racing to take into consideration before the penultimate day of racing even gets underway. Once on the road, the Blockhaus is uncharted territory for the women's event and an accumulated climbing tally of 3,600m is also unfamiliar racing ground.
“It is going to be a day of war and attrition out there,” said Bäckstedt, who added that the Canyon-SRAM team had been working hard to keep Niedermaier and particularly Bradbury cool, watered and fed in the run-up. “We are all in tomorrow to try and pull off the biggest ride that we possibly can and hope for the best outcome.”
