Stage 6 of the Giro d’Italia Women saw a breakaway fight for the victory while the GC favourites finished in the next group down the road, maglia rosa Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek) sprinting to fourth on the stage.
Friday's stage in Chieti was won by Liane Lippert (Movistar Team), ahead of Ruth Edwards (Human Powered Health) and Erica Magnaldi (UAE Team ADQ).
The heat played a role in the relative lack of GC action. Longo Borghini has been in the maglia rosa for six consecutive days, since winning the opening time trial. However, stage 7 and its more than 3,000 metres of altitude gain loomed large over the race leader, and all riders tried to conserve energy for Saturday’s queen stage.
“It was once again a very, very hot stage. Today was even hotter than all the other days, on the descents it really felt like you had a fan on you," Longo Borghini said looking back on the stage.
"We tried to control what was controllable for us, and in the end, Gaia and I have to focus on the GC riders. For us it was perfect that the breakaway went. We let them go because they were far behind in the GC, and we couldn’t chase them all.”
With the bonus seconds taken by the breakaway, there was no real need for her to sprint for the finish line. The Italian wanted to secure the leader’s jersey in order to show it to her husband, and Lidl-Trek teammate Jacopo Mosca, at the start of stage 7, knowing that she might lose it on Saturday's queen stage.
“I really wanted to sprint, just to make sure that I secured the maglia rosa, because you never know what can happen tomorrow. My husband will arrive tomorrow, so just to show him that I’m still wearing it, at least at the start,” she explained.
Stage 7 is the absolute queen stage of the Giro d’Italia Women with the 11.3-kilometre Passo Lanciano and the 16.5-kilometre finishing climb to the Blockhaus, and Longo Borghini has done her preparation.
“Gaia [Realini] and I went for a recon. We saw the climb and descent and then we also did the last bit [to the finish]. It’s going to be a tough stage, Blockhaus is a hard climb, and you have to respect those climbs. I come from the mountains, and I’m used to respecting the mountains, so I will climb it and try to respect it,” Longo Borghini was aware of the difficulties to come.
“It will be important to manage your effort well on the first climb and on the first part of the second climb. We are at the end of the Giro, everyone is tired, and you could even lose several minutes."
Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) will be her closest rival, but Longo Borghini wasn’t quite sure what the World Champion would be able to do on such a mountainous stage.
“I honestly don’t know what to expect from Lotte. She showed it last year on the Tourmalet. I will try to look at myself and manage myself as best I can,” Longo Borghini finished.
Unlike the maglia rosa, Kopecky did not sprint at the finish on Friday. She had been at the back of the peloton when the break went away, unable to react herself, and then it was too late to bring the break back.
“It would have been nice to try and take some bonus seconds, but the group went out when I went for feeding and then we didn’t really have the people anymore to control it. We had a lot of really high pace on the final climb in the end, so I just tried to go and then maybe we could bridge, but the gap was just too big,” Kopecky said.
The climbs on stage 7 will be a challenge of a different kind for the Belgian, even more so as she has never ridden the Passo Lanciano and Blockhaus before. With that in mind, Kopecky also tried to manage expectations, saying that a final GC podium would be a good result.
"I will have a very good study this evening. I know that it’s a really hard climb, but on the Tourmalet everybody expected that it would have been way too hard for me, and I didn’t do too bad there," Kopecky said.
"I came into this Giro trying to go for stage wins, we have two already with the team. This GC, it’s only two more days and I’m in a very nice position, but it’s also really nice that there is zero pressure from the team. They just try to help me as well as they can. If we can get on the podium in the end, that would be very nice."
For part of the climb to Chieti, Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon-SRAM) had been setting the pace herself despite still having a teammate with her in Neve Bradbury. Niedermaier’s effort paid off as Kim Le Court (AG Insurance-Soudal) was dropped and lost 37 seconds to the 21-year-old German, moving Niedermaier up to fifth place overall.
“For me it’s just easier to go on the climb from the front so I don’t lose time and stay in a good place in the GC. Tomorrow will be pretty hard stage with over 300 metres of elevation, but I think it’s our terrain. We like it, we’re looking forward to it and will try our best, then we will see what we can get out of it,” said the white jersey.
