#Gaia Realini

[etapereine]

the queen and her pocket powerhouse

[jumbo-vismen]

italy mixed ttt team…

[womensworldtour]

With the Spring Classics behind us, the Women's World Tour turns its attention on stage racing, with La Vuelta Feminina just days away. It's going to look a little different this year without last year's winner and dominant force in the peloton Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar), who retired at the end of last season.

On the other hand, some very familiar faces will still be there hunting stages. Marianne Vos (Visma Lease-a-Bike) took two stages in 2023 and may want a few more.

And several teams have seen the classics as having shown the way to beat super-teams like SD Worx-Protime, and will want to try their hand at the general classification, although Demi Vollering is still probably the one to beat and the odds-on favorite. (Absolutely no commentary here about nature breaks.)

Last year's Vuelta was a big announcement for the young climber from Lidl-Trek, Gaia Realini, who out-sprinted AvV for a stage win and out-climbed everyone but Vollering on the Covadonga climb on Stage 7.

And we've already seen some great younger talent this season, so hopefully some new names will be standing atop the podiums across the eight stages.

La Vuelta Feminia begins with a team time trial on April 28.

[marcelskittels]

Elisa Longo Borghini & Gaia Realini of Italy and Trek-Segafredo during the 1st UAE Tour Women 2023, Stage 3 a 107km stage from Hazza bin Zayed Stadium to Jebel Hafeet on February 11, 2023 in Jebel Hafeet, UAE. (Photos by Tim de Waele/Getty Images)

[inrng]

Photo: ASO/Billy Ceusters

[protecthiminthewashingmachine]

"you can barely see her anyway, even behind Fisher-Black she can still hide" - about gaia realini

[trixies-allstar-crown]

Gaia Realini continues to take Giro Donne 'step by step'

GC podium no target for young Lidl-Trek climber from CyclingNews RSS Feed https://ift.tt/wZ4P3N7

[delectablywaywardbeard-blog]

Ciclismo: Longo Borghini nuova campionessa italiana

Elisa Longo Borghini è la nuova campionessa italiana Elite. Sul traguardo di Comano Terme, in Trentino, ha preceduto Silvia Persico e Marta Cavalli. Quarta Gaia Realini che si aggiudica il titolo tricolore Under 23.    Per Elisa Longo Borghini si tratta dell’undicesimo titolo nazionale tra le Élite, il quarto nella prova in linea che va ad affiancarsi ai sette titoli conquistati nelle…

[globalhappenings]

Cycling: Giro women, American Faulkner wins the ninth stage

Cycling: Giro women, American Faulkner wins the ninth stage

Good performance by the American Kristen Faulkner who today, after a 90-kilometer breakaway, won the ninth stage of the Giro d’Italia women by posting, the 112.8 km San Michele all’Adige-San Lorenzo Dorsino. The American of the BikeExchange Jayco team had already set herself in the first stage of this Giro, an individual time trial. Today she detached her escape companion Gaia Realini on the…

[etapereine]

happy birthday to my favorite pocket powerhouse!!

[womensworldtour]

What do we love to see more than Kasia Niewiadoma winning races? Niewiadoma finishing alongside her teammate, Neve Bradbury (Canyon-SRAM), who takes her first professional victory!

Stage 3 of Tour de Suisse Women was an up-and-down stage with four categorized climbs, and multiple breakaways went up the road on the climbs. Bradbury went in one of the breakaways, and when Niewiadoma bridged to join her, they worked together with three other riders (Amanda Spratt, Elena Pirrone, Femke de Vries) and built a gap of almost three and a half minutes to the peloton. That forced SD Worx to chase, with a bit of help from dsm-firmenich PostNL.

Eventually, Bradbury and Niewiadoma dropped their breakaway companions on the last climb, and rolled into the finish together. Spratt and de Vries finished two minutes back, just ahead of the group of top riders—Demi Vollering, Elisa Longo Borghini, Gaia Realini, and Kim Cadzow.

Bradbury now finds herself in second on GC, 1:22 behind Vollering, so it will be interesting to see how Canyon-SRAM defends her podium position on the fourth and final stage!

[marcelskittels]

Elisa Longo Borghini & Gaia Realini UAE Tour Women 2023 - Stage 3

[womensworldtour]

The weekend saw the first two stages of the Tour de Suisse Women, with immediate action out of the gate. The first stage was relatively short, with a mountaintop finish, something we don't see in stage racing very often. And we were rewarded with some real fireworks, ignited by Elise Chabbey (Canyon-SRAM) at the top of the Col de la Croix. She took the mountains points, and just kept on going, launching what became a 50km solo attack.

Chabbey kept her lead through the Rhône valley, which eventually forced SD Worx-Protime to put Femke Gerritse and European champ Mischa Bredewold on the front to do big turns to narrow the gap before the lower slopes of the Villars-sur-Ollon climb. Demi Vollering herself had to start pacing, and eventually got some help from Gaia Realini (Lidl-Trek). Those two proved to be the strongest of the climbers in the bunch, and eventually they both launched to chase down Chabbey, working pretty well together. Chabbey was caught around the QOM point, but not before she secured the QOM points jersey. (She fought to the end and finished third on the stage.) Vollering and Realini continued on together, until Vollering attacked just before the flamme rouge, dropping Realini and taking the stage victory.

We were cheering for Chabbey, to be honest, after such a gutsy performance, but Vollering is definitely the best climber in the world. And it was nice to see Realini back in action after her nasty crash in La Vuelta Feminina.

The ITT in Stage 2 had a flat section before the second half rose up in a climb, and most riders elected to do a bike change. Honestly, ITTs can be a bit boring sometimes, and it's fun to see how well teams manage the bike change. We always appreciate a smooth swap and applaud the efforts of the soigneurs and mechanics to give the riders a good push after the swap.

The big question would be whether any rider could put in a good enough performance to challenge Demi Vollering's position in yellow. And there were some really impressive performances, particularly from Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek) and Kim Cadzow (EF Education-Cannondale), who placed second and third, respectively. Giai Realini also put in a solid time-trial, which is impressive given the disadvantage her smaller size gives her.

But at the end of the day, Demi Vollering showed once again why she is the woman to beat. Vollering finished 18 seconds ahead of ELB, adding to her advantage and putting her a little less than a minute and a half ahead of ELB and Realini. Cadzow is not far behind the two Italians, so the battle for the podium is still fierce, but it's hard to imagine Vollering won't continue to dominate in the final stages.

[womensworldtour]

Who's the best stage racer in the women's peloton right now? This woman right here.

With a solid lead over her rivals, the GC lead wasn't really in play in the fourth and final stage of the Tour de Suisse Women. But Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime) wasn't leaving anything to chance. She won the final sprint to take the stage and show that she is the overwhelming favorite for this year's Tour de France Femmes.

It was an exciting final stage, with the rest of the podium at play and mere seconds separating Neve Bradbury (Canyon-SRAM), Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek), Gaia Realini (Lidl-Trek), and Kim Cadzow (EF Education-Cannondale). Kasia Niewiadoma attacked in the final 10k, allowing her teammate Bradbury to sit on a bit. Lidl-Trek set a very hard pace for much of the day, and Niewiadoma's attack forced the team to sacrifice Gaia Realini's position on GC to ensure that ELB stayed on the podium. Realini did a big lead-out on the final climb, and ELB fought hard, and although she held off Niewiadoma to stay in third place, she couldn't put enough time into Bradbury, who stayed ahead of her by two seconds to keep second place.

In the end, as the top riders neared the finish, a relatively fresh Vollering lit up the sprint and won by several bike lengths. ELB took second, and Niewiadoma sat up to ensure that Bradbury placed third, taking the bonus seconds and cementing her second-place in the general classification.

The Tour de Suisse Women has some unusual stages, and we like the variety. It's also just a gorgeous race to watch. We'd really like to see this race expanded in the future.

Canyon-SRAM deserves kudos for the raid they pulled off on Stage 3, and an impressive set of performances from Neve Bradbury (2nd), Kasia Niewiadoma (4th), Antonia Niedermaier (6th), and with Elise Chabbey winning the Mountains Classification and placing 14th on GC.

Lidl-Trek also put up a big performance, with four riders in the top twelve. ELB did a really impressive time trial, and fought hard to stay on the podium. Realini was the closest rider to Vollering on the climbs. Amanda Spratt and Brodie Chapman did a lot of work for this result—Spratt in the breakaway on Stage 3 and Chapman single-handedly chasing down breakaways in Stage 4.

We were also impressed by Kim Cadzow's performance this week. She crashed on one of the descents and lost more than three minutes, but still finished the stage and came in eighth on GC despite her injuries. This was a great race to watch.

[etapereine]

📸 naikefotosport

[womensworldtour]

Tour de France Femmes - Stage 8

The final stage, the Queen Stage, of the Tour de France Femmes, and a proper mountain stage that would determine not just the podium, but most of the top 10 of the general classification. A rider that blows up badly on a Category 1 climb like the Col du Glandon or the Alpe d'Huez can lose several minutes in a hurry. Justine Ghekiere (AG Insurance-Soudal) again went in the break and took the mountains points at the top of the Col de Tamié to cement her position as the winner of the polka-dot jersey.

But the story of this stage really began on the climb of the Col du Glandon, when Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime) attacked near the top to try to retake time on Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM). No one but Pauliena Rooijakkers (Fenix-Deceuninck) could follow, and Niewiadoma was left to limit her loses behind.

Vollering descended aggressively, but was left alone in the valley until Rooijakkers joined. Even still, Rooijakkers didn't cooperate, and Vollering had to do most of the work, while the rest of the GC group chased on, with riders like Lucinda Brand (Lidl-Trek) working for their own GC leaders and reducing the advantage to 43 seconds before the base of the climb of the Alpe d'Huez. Vollering pushed hard, but so did Niewiadoma behind, and only Gaia Realini (Lidl-Trek) and Evita Muzic (FDJ-Suez) could follow. Niewiadoma pushed so hard that she dropped Realini, and we essentially had a race against the clock.

Vollering drove it hard all the way to the line, and took the stage with a several-second gap on Rooijakkers. But the question was, was it enough to win the general classification? The minute in between Vollering and Niewiadoma felt like a time trial finish.

Evita Muzic sprinted past Niewiadoma in the end to take the last of the bonus seconds, but it didn't matter, Niewiadoma finished with four seconds to spare, keeping her lead and winning her first Tour de France Femmes. For a rider that hadn't won a race in 5 years before this spring, what an amazing turn of form and luck! Niewiadoma celebrated her narrow victory by what is becoming her trademark bike lift.

And Rooijakkers, for her efforts, landed herself on the podium in third place, a great result for her and her Fenix-Deceuninck team.

The classifications looked like this, and we think it's appropriate to have a young phenom like Puck Pieterse on one end and a legend like Marianne Vos on the other. The history and future of the sport, there before our very eyes.

We also liked the team classification winners, Lidl-Trek, who included Amanda Spratt on the podium, even though she withdrew partway through yesterday's stage due to a broken hand. Reportedly she was helping with bottles on today's stage, so her dedication was complete!