Pooley claims hilltop finish

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Garmin-Cervelo's climber Emma Pooley put the Giro Donne back to its proper state, with a climber on top on the mountain top finish in Valdidentro. After yesterday's dominant victory on the queen stage of this years' Giro Marianne Vos (2nd) recovered well to stubbornly on to the Brit's wheel and solidify her lead in the overall classification

The Dutch rider now sits with an almost unassailable 2:32 lead over second overall Emma Pooley and a further five minutes back to third; Judith Arndt (HTC-Highroad).

How it unfolded

On the penultimatel climb of the day, Vos showed off her descending skills to get a gap over the field. Pooley followed and the two worked together to create an advantage. The main field began to splinter under the pressure from the chase and ultimately it was Ruth Corset who lead an elite chasing group with Tatian Guderzo and Judith Arndt.

In the final final two kilometres of the stage, the strada bianca allowed Vos, who is a cyclo cross world champion, to ride quite comfortably with Pooley who didn't seem quite as used to the terrain. In the end Vos took a close second to Pooley at the line, with Ruth Corset (Bizkaia-Durango) getting away from her other chasing companions to take third on her own.

Tomorrow the field will taken on one more hard mountain day with the difficult finish upon the Ceresole Reale. The climb will be the last chance for those looking to make up the deficit on Vos with the final day time-trial unlikely to prove decisive.

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