Neve Bradbury (Canyon-SRAM) won the queen stage of the Giro d'Italia Women, attacking with 9.4km to go on stage 7 to the Blockhaus and soloing to the finish to take the biggest victory of her career so far, also moving onto the GC podium.
Maglia rosa Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek) had Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) on her rear wheel for the entire climb until Kopecky attacked with 300 metres to go.
Longo Borghini jumped to the World Champion's wheel and held on, finishing on the same time. With 6 bonus seconds to Kopecky and 4 to the Italian, the gap between the two riders is now down to only one second going into the final stage.
“I’m really cooked, to be honest. I had to go so deep, so far into the red zone, I don’t think I’ve pushed so hard in my life. First, I was just thinking about the stage win, and then at one point I was like, ‘actually, maybe we can be on the podium with me’,” said Bradbury.
Bradbury had made her first move with 10.6km to go but was quickly reeled in again. The 22-year-old Australian then launched her winning attack from the back of the group of favourites.
“I was thinking they would catch back up for sure. I kind of came with speed, so it wasn’t that they didn’t have the legs, just that they didn’t expect it,” said Bradbury, explaining her winning move.
Bradbury’s advantage varied between 40 seconds and just over a minute for most of the climb, but she went all-out to keep her rivals behind her on the final kilometres.
“I wasn’t really looking at my power meter, I was just trying to go full full-gas, I wasn’t really thinking anything apart from each pedal stroke,” Bradbury concluded.
How it unfolded
With two long climbs, stage 7 was the undisputed queen stage. The first half of the 120km stage wasn’t easy at all, but the real difficulty came after the intermediate sprint in Manoppello: The first-category Passo Lanciano, 11.3km at an average 8.5%, followed by a long descent back to Manoppello to climb the same ascent again – but this time, the riders would continue uphill to finish at the Blockhaus after a 16.5km climb with an average gradient of 7.9%.
Claire Steels (Movistar Team) attacked with 95km to go, but her gap never went over 50 seconds, and she was caught again on the Passo Lanciano. Clara Emond (EF-Oatly-Cannondale), wearer of the blue mountain jersey since her stage 4 victory, suffered in the heat and had to abandon the race, leaving Justine Ghekiere (AG Insurance-Soudal) virtually in the lead of the mountain classification.
From a peloton of 24 riders, Ghekiere sprinted for the maximum points atop the Passo Lanciano, taking her tally to 41 points which was enough to get the blue jersey after the stage. Local rider Gaia Realini (Lidl-Trek) led the peloton down the descent, and her teammate Brodie Chapman took over the pacing in the valley and on the first kilometre of the Blockhaus climb.
When Realini went to the front again, she quickly reduced the size of the group even further, and with 15km to go, only Realini, Longo Borghini, Kopecky, Bradbury, Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon-SRAM), Pauliena Rooijakkers (Fenix-Deceuninck), Niamh Fisher-Black (SD Worx-Protime), Mavi García, Urška Žigart (both Liv-AlUla-Jayco), Juliette Labous (DSM-Firmenich PostNL), and Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (FDJ-Suez) were left.
Labous, Uttrup Ludwig, and Žigart were the next to be dropped, though Labous managed to make her way back to the group. Bradbury’s first attack splintered the group as Rooijakkers tried to follow the Australian climber, Longo Borghini led Niedermaier and Kopecky a bit further back, and Fisher-Black, Realini, Garcia, and Labous were dropped for good.
Rooijakkers bridged to Bradbury, and Longo Borghini brought the chasing trio back at the 10km mark, going to the front of this new group of five. Bradbury slotted in at the back and then launched her second attack with 9.4km to go, quickly getting a gap on the other four riders.
8km from the finish, Bradbury was 35 seconds ahead, and Niedermaier was struggling to hang on in the group behind. Bradbury’s advantage had grown to 52 seconds when Longo Borghini attacked with 6.5km to go. Kopecky immediately jumped to the overall leader’s wheel, but Rooijakkers and Niedermaier were distanced.
Rooijakkers came back to Longo Borghini and Kopecky 6km from the finish, soon had to let go again, but returned just after the 5km mark, even taking the lead in the group. This meant that Bradbury could increase her advantage to one minute, and Longo Borghini launched a second attack with 4km to go, dropped Rooijakkers but not shaking Kopecky from her wheel.
Once more, Rooijakkers came back to the two GC rivals and led them onto the final kilometre where Kopecky launched her bid for the maglia rosa inside the 300-metre mark, attacking hard in an attempt to drop Longo Borghini. But the Italian persevered, reaching Kopecky’s wheel and not giving an inch to the finish to keep the overall lead by one second.
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