Stage seven winner Annemiek van Vleuten (Mitchelton-SCOTT) took a phenomenal solo victory up the iconic Monte Zoncolan at the Giro-Rosa today. Wearing the Maglia Rosa she crossed the line 40 seconds faster than her nearest rival to extend her overall lead by three minutes and 35 seconds with one-day remaining.
After a fast start and once again many attacks, finally a breakaway of three riders formed a one-minute lead over the peloton. The race passed through a rain storm, which saw the peloton split slightly and the trio were finally reeled in with 15 kilometres remaining.
Today was the first time in history the women headed up the climb from the Ovaro side like the men’s peloton earlier this year in the Giro d’Italia. The only other time the Zoncolan was used in the women’s race was back in 1997 when the riders headed up the climb from the other side.
As the riders started the climb, a high pace was set by Boels-Dolmans with Megan Guarnier causing the front of the race to reduce to around 15 riders. On the first real steep section it was Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (Cervelo-Bigla) who made a big acceleration with only van Vleuten able to follow.
With confidence after dominating in the uphill time trial on Thursday, van Vleuten waited patiently before accelerating away from Moolman with two kilometres to go and to an emphatic solo stage win.
Teammate Amanda Spratt also fought on behind, crossing the line in third place to jump back up into third place overall with one stage remaining. Van Vleuten now heads into the 10th and final stage with a three minutes 35seconds advantage over her rivals.
Annemiek van Vleuten – “Today was epic on the Zoncolan, but I loved it. I was looking forward to this day and of course defending the GC and the Maglia Rosa was my primary objective, but I also wanted to win this stage really, really badly.”
“It’s awesome that the Queen Stage was organised on such a famous climb like Monte Zoncolan, it’s really good for women’s cycling and makes the day unforgettable. It is such a hard climb, so steep that it was difficult to put pressure on the front wheel.
“I didn’t recon the climb beforehand, but I knew it was steep and I actually had something left to attack Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio because I really wanted to win and the last few hundred metres there were so many people clapping and cheering, it was so special, and I had a little bit of time to enjoy the moment.”
Giro-Rosa stage 9 results:
1. Annemiek van Vleuten (Mitchelton-SCOTT) 3:17
2. Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (Cervelo-Bigla) +0:40
3. Amanda Spratt (Mitchelton-SCOTT) +2:54
General classification after stage 9:
1. Annemiek van Vleuten (Mitchelton-SCOTT) 22:50
2. Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (Cervelo-Bigla) +3:35
3. Amanda Spratt (Mitchelton-SCOTT) 5:53
