Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek) has been wearing the Giro d’Italia Women’s maglia rosa since her stage 1 victory in the time trial – but going into the final stage 8 from Pescara to L’Aquila, the Italian champion’s advantage over her rival Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) has been reduced to only one second.
The question is, will Longo Borghini be able to stop Kopecky from gaining back that one second, and win the overall title?
Kopecky stayed on Longo Borghini’s wheel on the Blockhaus climb, biding her time and making her move in the last 300 metres. Longo Borghini could stick to the world champion’s wheel, though, and only gave up two seconds due to the bonus seconds on offer at the finish – six for second-placed Kopecky and four for Longo Borghini in third.
“I never underestimate Lotte. I think today she had an outstanding performance. It seems like it always comes down to sprints with her and me, and most of the time, she wins it," Longo Borghini said after the stage, having received a new maglia rosa on the podium.
"What can I say? [I'm] still in pink, but she is really close now, so let’s see tomorrow,”
From the start of the race seven days ago, the Italian champion had made clear that she was taking the maglia rosa day by day, not thinking too far ahead and cherishing each day in the pink leader’s jersey at her home country’s national stage race.
Now only one second ahead, Longo Borghini sounded almost resigned to a fate where Kopecky would outsprint her again on the final day to take the GC victory.
Fortunately for Longo Borghini, there are no bonus seconds awarded at the intermediate sprints at the Giro d’Italia Women, meaning that the GC will come down to the L’Aquila finish.
The stage winner gets a ten-second bonification, the runner-up gets six bonus seconds, and the third-placed rider receives four bonus seconds. This means that if Kopecky finishes in the top 3 of the stage and ahead of Longo Borghini, she will win the race overall title.
Stage 8 is anything but easy with a very long but relatively shallow third-category climb in the first 50km followed by the 13.7km climb to Castel del Monte, averaging 4.7%. Nowhere near as steep as the Passo Lanciano or Blockhaus, both Longo Borghini and Kopecky should still have a couple of teammates left for the second half of the stage which includes three short unclassified climbs.
Just before L’Aquila, riders will face the climb to Acquasanta, just under 2km at an average of 5.5%, and a maximum gradient of 9%. After a fast descent to the 2km mark, the road rises gently before kicking up for real on the last 1200 metres that climb at 7.6%, maxing out at 11%.
On the flat, Kopecky would win a sprint against Longo Borghini almost every time. However, the finishing climb is arguably too steep for Kopecky to use her punch to drop Longo Borghini, who has a fantastic ability to fight back and hang on.
Furthermore, Lidl-Trek already utilised the breakaway well on stage 6 to take the bonus seconds away and can be expected to do the same on stage 8. This would put the onus on SD Worx-Protime to bring back the break on a hard stage, tiring the team out and leaving Kopecky with less-than-ideal support in the final.
And Longo Borghini might even decide that attack is the best defence and pre-empt Kopecky’s move with an attack of her own on the Acquasanta climb, putting Kopecky on the back foot.
“I don’t fear her; I’m more, like, concerned, but it’s not going to mess up my sleep,” Longo Borghini promised that, if nothing else, she would face her final Giro challenge well-rested.
