Annemiek van Vleuten of Movistar Team won stage 4 of Giro d’Italia Donne on 7th July, Monday. With just 50 km to go, Van Vleuten sprinted along with three others, but they could not keep up with the speed of Annemiek van Vleuten.
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Marta Cavalli (FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope) and Kristen Faulkner (Team BikeExchange-Jayco) put up a match against the 39-year-old, but they were no match today for Annemiek van Vleuten as she dashed her way to victory. Mavi García (UAE Team ADQ) did catch up with Van Vleuten for a while, but even the Spanish champion could not steal the victory from The Movistar rider today.
With 700 meters left to the finish line, Garcia sprinted and tried to give Van Vleuten a tough match. But Annemiek van Vleuten came today on the ground, determined to take her win. Garcia came second, while Marta Cavalli finished third. Van Vleuten gined a whole second over Garcia.
Giro d’Italia, Donne is overjoyed to have taken the maglia rosa. Her happiness was reflecting in her words as she said:
Last year, it was with pain in my heart that I wasn’t riding the Giro. I wanted to do my specific training in Livigno for the Olympic time trial, but it was hard to miss out last year, and I am happy to be back
She continued:
Also, I’m super happy to do this for the first time with my Movistar team, so it’s a new challenge. The last times, I was always with my Australian team, and so it’s a new challenge for us to do it together with my Spanish team Movistar. It’s cool to be back
Annemiek van Vleuten just announced her retirement at the end of 2023. She added that she wanted to retire while her career was at high, and it looks like she is going to maintain her streak.
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How it happened
In a scorching 38 degrees, the 120.9-kilometer hilly stage presented itself as a rather exhausting challenge. Lara Vieceli and Franziska Brauße (Ceratizit-WNT) took the first solo breakaway. In Bertinoro, Brauße sprinted, but Évita Muzic caught up with her.
Contact with Elisa Balsamo of Trek-Segafredo was lost with just 50 km to go. Only a group of 23 riders now fought for the final win. Faulkner, Cavalli, Van Vleuten and García formed a group before the climb. While traces of Faulkner were lost, the other three led a group of now 10 people fighting for the stage win. After a while, the group of three managed to put a distance of a good minute and a half over the others, which eventually grew to 4:51 minutes.
Furthermore, García won the green jersey as she scored the most points on the third classification climb. On the climb to Carpineta, which is also the final climb, the Spanish Champion sprinted, leaving behind Cavalli. Her only rival was now Van Vleuten.
With the last 700 meters to go, Garcia tried hard to finish before Van Vleuten, but Van Vleuten took the win as well the Maglia Rosa. Below are the results of top 5.
| POS | RIDER | TEAM | TIME |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Annemiek van Vleuten | Movistar Team | 03:13:13 |
| 2 | Mavi Garcia | UAE Team ADQ | + 01 |
| 3 | Marta Cavalli | FDJ-Nouvelle Aquitaine-Futuroscope | + 43 |
| 4 | Silvia Persico | Valcar-Travel & Service | + 04:51 |
| 5 | Amanda Spratt | Team BikeExchange-Jayco | + 04:51 |
Also Read: Tour De France: Dylan Groenewegen Wins Stage Three
Featured Image Via YouTube/ FloBikes
