FDJ United-Suez leader Demi Vollering claimed a spectacular mountain victory atop the iconic Colle delle Finestre in today’s highly anticipated queen stage of the Giro d’Italia Women, but the real story was a late course alteration that damaged her chances of pulling the pink jersey off Anna van der Breggen’s shoulders.
With the peloton tackling the lower slopes of the Finestre, race organizers at RCS Sport made the call to significantly shorten the route. An unstable sheet of ice near the summit threatened to trigger an avalanche on the road, forcing officials to act mid-race. The entire descent off the back of the mountain and the final climb up to Sestriere were completely abandoned.
RCS Sport CEO Paolo Bellino later explained that unseasonably warm temperatures over a three-hour window rendered the upper sectors too high-risk for rider safety. Instead of the grand alpine loop originally planned, the race directory strung a literal piece of rope across the dirt roads to establish a makeshift finish line just 1 kilometer from the top of the Cima Coppi climb.
The sudden change in racing architecture caught the peloton over halfway up the mountain, right as the road transitioned into the climb’s famous 9-kilometer gravel sector.
By the time the race hit the unpaved ramps, the pack was already splintered. A high-tempo pace by FDJ United-Suez tore the peloton apart early, dropping support riders out the back and leaving a select group of general classification favorites to contest the truncated finish line.
When the road flattened for the final kick across the loose stones, Vollering unleashed an explosive acceleration to out-sprint her closest GC rivals. Lidl-Trek’s young prodigy Isabella Holmgren utilized her extensive off-road mountain biking experience to find traction on the shifting gravel, pushing Vollering closest to claim second on the stage and protect her fourth place on the overall leaderboard. Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon-SRAM) crossed the line third, with van der Breggen firmly glued to her wheel in fourth.
While Vollering’s triumph clawed back a handful of bonus seconds at the line, van der Breggen leaves the mountain with her commanding position intact. The SD Worx-Protime leader’s buffer was trimmed from a minute down to 49 seconds, placing her on the precipice of securing a fifth career Giro d’Italia general classification victory.
Further down the top ten, the loose gravel caused major turbulence across the overall standings. Femke de Vries (Visma-Lease a Bike) was the day’s primary beneficiary, climbing two spots to claim sixth on General Classification. Her ascension came at the expense of two-time Giro winner Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ) and Niamh Fisher-Black (Lidl-Trek), who both bled time on the upper ramps and dropped to seventh and eighth respectively. AG Insurance-Soudal also enjoyed a late-week surge, with Urška Žigart and Lore de Schepper both gaining ground to round out the bottom of the top ten.
Vollering now has just one final stage remaining on Sunday to overturn her 50-second deficit. With only three categorized climbs on the itinerary and a completely flat 25-kilometer run-in to the finishing town of Saluzzo, van der Breggen looks entirely safe to seal the pink jersey.
Results
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