Giro d’Italia Women Stage 1: Wiebes Weaves Her Usual Magic in Huge Sprint

Lorena Wiebes landed the 127th victory of her career on Sunday, capturing the opening stage and the first maglia rosa of the Giro d’Italia Women in Ravenna.

The dominant Dutchwoman is regarded as the peloton’s best sprinter and she underlined that point with an emphatic win over Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek), Lara Gillespie (UAE Team ADQ), Ciara Consoni (Canyon-SRAM-Zondacrypto) and others.

Other teams tried to complicate things for her but Wiebes and her SD Worx-ProTime team were more than capable of controlling things, even if Millie Couzens (Fenix-PremierTech) put in a dash close to the line to try to help teammate Charlotte Kool.

“It’s the best possible start,” Wiebes said. “A stage win and the Pink Jersey – we couldn’t have asked for more. The team guided me perfectly, I just had to finish the job.

“It will be amazing to race tomorrow wearing this jersey.”

Wiebes tops the GC heading into Sunday’s stage 2, a mostly flat 156km race from Roncade to Caorle. Another bunch gallop is the most likely outcome, as is also the case on Monday.

However with the prestige of a Giro win being so great, other riders will try to steal a march well before the finish.

A day for the fast women

The men’s Giro d’Italia is drawing to a close but there is still plenty of racing left in Italy, with Saturday marking the beginning of the nine-day Giro d’Italia Women.

The race from Cesenatico to Ravenna was undoubtedly one for the sprinters with just 240 meters of gradient across 139km. However the hopes of Cat Ferguson (Movistar) to land her first-ever grand tour stage win was dashed when she was involved in a crash with 49km covered.

Also tangled up was US road race champion Kristen Faulker (EF Education-Oatly) but while she was able to continue, Ferguson was not.

Valeria Curnis (Isolmant – Premac – Vittoria) and Sharon Spimi (Top Girls Fassa Bortolo) went on the attack early on and were joined by Sofia Arici (Fantini Wines – BePink). They had four minutes with 99km left but were hauled back 50km from the finish line.

The sprinters’ teams drove the pace for their various leaders, with UAE Team ADQ prominent for Lara Gillespie.

SD Worx-ProTime then hit the front with 3.8km to go, with Lorena Wiebes raring to land another big win. UAE had more to give and struck back inside 2km remaining, but their earlier efforts saw them weaken.

SD Worx’ Barbara Guarischi drove forwards, Millie Couzens (Fenix-PremierTech) took over, and then Wiebes thundered home for the fifth Giro stage win of her career.