Annemiek van Vleuten wastes no time, takes pink in Giro’s second stage
The five-second time loss in the Giro Rosa’s opening team time trial meant little to Mitchelton-Scott’s Annemiek Van Vleuten, who won stage two of the Giro Rosa solo by a minute. The chasers, Anna van der Breggen of Boels-Dolmans Cycling Team and Kasia Niewiadoma of Canyon // SRAM Racing, didn’t have the road or the legs to catch Van Vleuten. FDJ Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope’s Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig was the fourth fastest to the end, finishing 1’20” down from Van Vleuten.
The pink jersey of Trek-Segafredo’s Elisa Longo Borghini lost a little over four and a half minutes and will hand over pink to Van Vleuten.
How it happened
Stage two was 125 kilometers long, constantly rolling, with some steeper climbs near the pointy end of the race. The riders set off from Paganico, just north of where the Team Time Trial took place yesterday. The first of two gravel sectors hit only 14km into the stage and lasted for 1.5km. The riders had plenty of time to regroup before the next sector, which came with almost 16km to go, and lasted for 4.2km. In between these two gravel sections was a series of short climbs that kept the riders on their toes. There was a total of 3,100 meters of altitude gain from start to finish.
Since just riding gravel isn’t hard enough, the second gravel sector included some steep climbs and lots of twisty technical bits. Just for some added fun, the gravel was loose and lumpy.
It was on this second gravel sector that van Vleuten made her move. A series of attacks led by Equip Paule Ka before the gravel were brought back together at the base of the Seggiano climb, with 15km to the finish. When the peloton hit the gravel Van Vleuten went. Under the combined pressure of her freakishly strong attack and the challenging gravel, the peloton blew to pieces.
Riders limped over the top of the final gravel climb in ones and twos, with van Vleuten leading. Close behind, the new Dutch national champion Anna van der Breggen followed. Behind her were Uttrup Ludwig and Niewiadoma. Both lost more time than they would have liked in the TTT, Uttrup Ludwig started stage two with a minute and 20 seconds to make up, Niewiadoma with a less daunting 16 seconds.
Longo Borghini, in the pink jersey, lost contact with the three leaders and came over the top of the gravel climb about 53 seconds behind.
Nine kilometers of relative flat with a short descent before the finish meant that the chase to van Vleuten was a tough one. With no actual group behind her, just a series of solo riders, and no teammates to help, it meant riders needed to have good legs to bring back the world champion.
Anna van der Breggen and Kasia Niewiadoma came together on the run-in to the finish and finished with 1’16” to the winner. Four seconds behind them, Uttrup Ludwig rode to the finish solo.
The next closest group contained CCC-Liv’s Ashleigh Moolman Pasio, Alé BTC Ljubljana’s Mavi Garcia, and the New Zealand national champion of Equip Paule Ka Mikayla Harvey lost a little over three minutes to Van Vleuten.
For full coverage and analysis, listen to our Tour Daily podcasts and subscribe to Freewheeling on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
More to come.
The post Annemiek van Vleuten wastes no time, takes pink in Giro’s second stage appeared first on CyclingTips.