World Champion Annemiek van Vleuten proved why she is the world time trial champion today by dominating the stage seven uphill time trial in the Giro-Rosa, crossing the line two minutes and 28 seconds ahead of her nearest rival to win the stage and move into the overall race lead.
The Mitchelton-SCOTT rider used her knowledge of the course to pace her effort well and continuously take time out of her rivals with each kilometre that passed. The gruelling stage left no place to hide with 15kilometres of uphill road which saw huge time gaps at the finish line in Alte Gera di Campo Moro.
It took a while before any riders could beat the 50 minute mark. General classification hopeful Elisa Longo-Borghi (Wiggle-High5) was the first to do so with a time of 49 minutes 34 seconds.
As the third to last rider to start, van Vleuten passed the half-way time check with a time of 23minutes 13seconds, 44seconds quicker than her one of her main rivals Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (Cervelo-Bigla).
However, van Vleuten didn’t ease off the pedals and continued to push for the final eight kilometres, constantly gaining time on the other stage contenders, to eventually cross the line with a huge margain over the rest.
Stage 6 winner Amanda Spratt also rode a strong time trial, finishing in fifth place on the stage to stay in contention overall, now in second place overall, two minutes and 53seconds behind her teammate.
“It was super, super hard today, but I put a lot of effort into this time trial with my team,” said Van Vleuten. “We did a solid recon a long time ago and decided it was a bit of an unconventional course for the TT bike, but I think no matter what bike I used I had good legs today and that’s what I needed for this course.”
“I felt really good in my rainbow colours, I’m not sure of the time gap, but I gave it everything out there and I was completely empty at the finish, but also super happy.
“After yesterday’s stage I was full of confidence today and I feel really good and it’s great all the hard work paid off. We’re focused on the task in hand and we are taking it day by day, there is the Zoncolan coming up and it’s a very hard climb, but we are riding very well and we can continue with confidence.”
Giro-Rosa stage 7 TT results:
1. Annemiek van Vleuten (Mitchelton-SCOTT) 46:06
2. Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (Cervelo-Bigla) 2:28
3. Lucinda Brand (Team Sunweb) 2:54
General classification after stage 7:
1. Annemiek van Vleuten (Mitchelton-SCOTT) 16:25
2. Amanda Spratt (Mitchelton-SCOTT) +2:53
3. Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (Cervelo-Bigla) +2:54
