World champion Lotte Kopecky came into the eighth and final stage of the Giro d’Italia Women with a simple but not easy goal, to grab the one single second separating her from race leader Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek). Her goal was to finish top three on the stage ahead of the race leader and take the bonus seconds to take the top step of the final podium.
“I have nothing to lose and I can just go all in today and try to go for the bonus [seconds] at the finish,” Kopecky said at the start of stage 8 in Pescara.
But, to achieve that goal, Kopecky and her SD Worx-Protime team needed to control all attacks throughout the 109km stage 8 which featured a very long but relatively shallow third-category climb in the first 50km followed by the 13.7km climb to Castel del Monte, averaging 4.7%.
Attacks flew from the start when three riders escaped before being reeled in before the intermediate sprint at Catignano. Another group of four made their way off the front and managed to establish a gap of over 30 seconds before being caught by the reduced peloton led by Niamh Fisher-Black (SD Worx-Protime) on the first-category Castel del Monte climb.
Attacks continued to fly as Kopecky had to shut down some of the moves herself until the decisive break of three riders went away with 36km to go. With only Fisher-Black leading the chase from the 20-rider peloton, the gap increased to 1:20 at the bottom of the Acquasanta climb.
The break made it to the line with Kim Le Court (AG Insurance-Soudal) taking the win while behind Kopecky went to the front with 700 metres to go to try again to draw the one second that she needed but the reverse happened when Longo Borghini was able to distance Kopecky in the finale steep climb.
“It was not so nice. Today was a pretty hard stage, I mean the fight was nice, that's for sure, and losing to Elisa is not a shame. She's a super good bike rider, so I also have a lot of respect for her. But it was really hard to control the stage, and everybody tried to go into the break, which is their right, of course,” Kopecky said after the stage.
“My teammates did what they could, and then in the end Niamh gave 200% so we did everything we could to try and win the GC, but in the end, it's second, and it's still very nice to become second in the Grand Tour.”
The first Belgian rider to finish on the Giro overall podium, Kopecky comes away with a stage win, the points jersey as well as finishing second in the overall classification.
She could not hide her disappointment after the stage. “If you're this close to winning a Giro, then of course, you also want to win it. So that's a bit sour, but I think overall, I just need to be proud of my team and of myself.”
“I have to look at the bigger picture. I came here to prepare for the Olympics, and I think I'm in really good shape, and that, of course, gives me confidence.”
Kopecky will be racing the Time Trial and Road Race as well as the endurance track events at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
