Longo Borghini shepherded by teammate Gaia Realini(Image credit: Getty Images)
Lippert drives the breakaway move(Image credit: Getty Images)
Lotte Kopecky (right) goes on the atack late on(Image credit: Getty Images)
Longo Borghini led home the GC favourites group(Image credit: Getty Images)
Liane Lippert (Movistar Team) won stage 6 of the Giro d'Italia Women in the sprint of a breakaway group, beating Ruth Edwards (Human Powered Health) and Erica Magnaldi (UAE Team ADQ) to the line in Chieti.
Four riders got away when a crash on the descent from the Penne climb opened a gap behind them with 40km to run. The quartet kept going, building an advantage of 2:40 minutes by the start of the finishing climb into Chieti.
Ane Santesteban (Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi) lost contact halfway up the finishing climb, leaving three riders up front. Although the peloton closed most of the gap, 21 seconds remained for the three frontrunners who sprinted for the victory in Chieti where Lippert was the strongest.
Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek) replied to an acceleration by Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) on the climb and won the sprint of a very reduced peloton to finish fourth and defend her overall lead.
"It's amazing. I had such a hard start [to the race], and it means so much to me. I'm so happy and relieved, this is for everyone who kept on believing in me and helped me in the long process," said Lippert after the stage.
"I had time to dream about it in the breakaway, and I kept on dreaming. There was a lot of mental strength also today. It was the plan to be in the breakaway and give me the chance.
"We knew it was a good parcours for me, also with the heat – normally I have no big problems, but today was next level. I was looking for it all the time, and I was in the right move."
How it unfolded
At 159km, the stage from San Benedetto del Tronto to Chieti was the longest of the 2024 edition. Add the many climbs and the heat to that, and it was a really challenging stage. Partly because of that, no breakaway succeeded for a long time, even though there was no shortage of attacks early on the stage.
Arlenis Sierra (Movistar Team) won the day’s intermediate sprint, then Justine Ghekiere (AG Insurance-Soudal) was first on the third-category climb to Cermignano to take seven mountain points. The blue jersey Clara Emond (EF-Oatly-Cannondale) was right behind the Belgian, though, taking four points and defending her mountain classification lead for another day.
Femke Gerritse (SD Worx-Protime) and Alessia Vigilia (FDJ-Suez) finally got a small gap with 55km to go. They were joined by Magdeleine Vallières Mill (EF-Oatly-Cannondale) and Claire Steels (Movistar Team), but this break was quickly reeled in by a peloton that was down to less than 40 riders by this point.
Nienke Vinke (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) set the pace for the entirety of the third-category Penne climb until Pauliena Rooijakkers (Fenix-Deceuninck) and Élise Chabbey (Canyon-SRAM) sprinted for the mountain points.
Chabbey led the peloton into the descent but then had her front wheel slide away in a corner, causing her and Alice Maria Arzuffi (Ceratizit-WNT) to crash. This opened a gap behind Lippert, Magnaldi, Edwards, and Santesteban who decided to keep going, forming the break of the day.
Further down the descent, a move by Kopecky was followed by Longo Borghini, white jersey Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon-SRAM), Mavi García (Liv-AlUla-Jayco), and Rooijakkers, and they settled down again.
At the 30km mark, the four escapees were 1:30 minutes ahead of what remained of the peloton. Niamh Fisher-Black (SD Worx-Protime) and Urška Žigart (Liv-AlUla-Jayco) worked to keep the deficit stable, but eventually, the gap increased to 2:43 minutes with 10km to go.
Lidl-Trek took charge on the run-in to the finishing climb, reducing the gap to two minutes, and then Vinke went to the front again to set the pace, further reducing the peloton’s deficit to 1:20 minutes.
Santesteban had to let go with 4.5km to go, and Magnaldi worked hard on the last kilometres to keep the peloton behind and improve her GC placing. Behind the leaders, Kopecky attacked on the steepest part of the climb just before it flatted off with 2.7km to go, but Longo Borghini was on her wheel immediately. The two GC favourites got a small gap on the others and passed Santesteban but stopped pushing and were caught at the two-kilometre mark.
Magnaldi led the front group on the uphill final kilometre, then Lippert launched her sprint and held off Edwards to win the stage, Magnaldi finishing a second later. Another 20 seconds on, Longo Borghini won the sprint for fourth place.
Lukas Knöfler started working in cycling communications in 2013 and has seen the inside of the scene from many angles. Having worked as press officer for teams and races and written for several online and print publications, he has been Cyclingnews’ Women’s WorldTour correspondent since 2018.
