Lorena Wiebes (Team SD Worx) won stage 3 of the Giro d'Italia Donne, a mainly flat 118.2 km from Formigine to Modena, beating Marianne Vos (Team Jumbo-Visma) and Chloé Dygert (Canyon-SRAM) in the sprint.
An early breakaway was caught on the day's only climb, but another break with three riders formed. They were up to one-and-a-half minutes ahead, but the peloton reeled them in with 11 km to go.
The sprint trains fought for position on the chaotic run-in through Modena. Barbara Guarischi (Team SD Worx) brought Wiebes to the front just at the right moment, Wiebes launched her sprint as she came out of the final corner 150 metres from the finish, and nobody even attempted to come past her.
Due to the technical finish, the times for the general classification were taken at the flamme rouge with 1 km to go, and Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar Team) remains the overall leader.
"I am really happy to take the stage win, the team worked really hard today, and Barbara Guarischi did a really good leadout with Elena [Cecchini]," the stage winner thanked her teammates who set up the sprint.
"We were a bit far behind in the last kilometres, but I fully trust Barbara as the last leadout, and she delivered me perfectly. She went in first on the last corners, and I only had to sprint for 150 metres. The team also survived the climb in the middle pretty good, so we were in control all day," Wiebes finished.
How it unfolded
The first breakaway consisted of Matilde Vitillo (BePink-Gold), Iris Monticolo (Top Girls Fassa Bortolo), Sofía Rodríguez (Bizkaia-Durango), and Noemi Eremita (GB Junior Team Piemonte Pedale Castanese ASD). They were never more than a minute ahead of the peloton, though, and Rodríguez couldn't follow the three Italians' pace when the third-category climb Villabianca-Marano started.
The rest of the break was caught on the climb, and Fem van Empel (Team Jumbo-Visma) was first over the top. After the descent, the race calmed down for a while until Giorgia Vettorello (BePink-Gold) attacked 54 km from the finish.
Asia Zontone (Isolmant-Premac-Vittoria) bridged to Vettorello a little while later, and when Alice Palazzi (Top Girls Fassa Bortolo) joined them, the new break was complete. Together, they increased their advantage to 1:31 minutes with 26 km to go when Team DSM-Firmenich and UAE Team ADQ started chasing in earnest.
15 km from the finish, the gap was down to 29 seconds, and the break was brought back four kilometres later. Now the sprint trains positioned themselves ahead of the technical final, with almost every team trying to line up at the front of the peloton.
Going over a railway bridge just over three kilometres from the finish, AG Insurance-Soudal Quick Step and Team DSM-Firmenich were at the front, with the Uno-X Pro Cycling Team coming up from behind and leading through the right-hander at 2 km to go. Canyon-SRAM and Team Jayco AlUla also moved up through the cobbled city centre while Team SD Worx and Team Jumbo-Visma stayed just behind the front.
On the final kilometre, the technical combination of a sharp right-hand turn, a left-hander through a narrow gate and another right-hand turn stretched out the peloton, and Guarischi came to the front with Wiebes at the right moment, going into the sweeping left-hand turn onto the finishing straight first.
When Guarischi peeled off, Wiebes had the finish line in sight and launched her sprint. Vos and Dygert were positioned in her slipstream but could not accelerate further, leaving Wiebes to win with more than a bike length. Further back, Letizia Paternoster (Team Jayco AlUla) crashed after leading out Georgia Baker to seventh place.
With the stage win, Wiebes now has the same number of sprint points as GC leader Van Vleuten and will wear the maglia ciclamino on stage 4 while Cavalli took the lead in the mountain classification from Van Vleuten.
Results
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