Juliette Labous strong 3rd in Marradi after tough climbing finale

After Friday’s cancelled stage, today saw the peloton back in action where a tough final climb saw Van Vleuten go solo to take the win while behind Juliette Labous sprinted to a great third place for Team dsm-firmenich.

Rolling out of Bagno a Ripoli just before midday, the peloton had a fraction over 100 kilometres to continued with along a mostly flat route but one that had a sting in the tail; with the day’s main obstacle of Passo della Colla (ten kilometres at almost six percent), cresting with 17 kilometres to go which was followed by a descent almost all the way to the finish.

Working well as a group, the team kept Labous safe throughout the stage before coming to the front in the second half of the day, contributing to the pace to shut down the early breakaway. The fight for position onto the climb saw the pace increase even further and the break was caught on the lower slopes, where Labous remained towards the front. Into the final few kilometres Van Vleuten put in a stinging attack and went solo while behind Labous rode at her own rhythm, not going into the red, and crested the ascent around ten seconds behind the group in front. Picking up riders on the descent, Labous’ group would ultimately come to the finish and fight it out for second place in the sprint. Showing a quick turn of speed, Labous put her head down and gave everything to the line; taking a fine third place in Marradi.

Speaking after the stage Labous said: “It was first pretty nervous, the Giro is always hectic in the first part so the girls kept me safe and brought me into every small climb and city right at the front so I felt really safe. Then they did a huge job going into the bottom of the main climb and I was in a perfect position. I felt the trust from them and went full to follow the best. I had a small gap in front of me to the second group behind Annemiek and then I gave everything in the downhill. We came back and fought for second place and I could sprint for third place. So I’m really happy to start with a podium here for the team, it’s really nice.”

Team dsm-firmenich coach Kelvin Dekker added: “We said that today could have gone several ways; from a sprint of a bigger group to a full on GC day, and it was definitely the latter. Going into the climb we were really strong and prepared for everything. Franzi and Eleonora and did a great job making sure we were safe and then Francesca, Esmée and Becky took over when the climb started. Megan saw immediately that it was going too fast for a reduced sprint day, so that scenario was out of the window. Our climbing trio tried to stay with Juliette for as long as possible and Francesca was really really strong today, she could hang on for a long time, which I think made Juliette feel safe and stronger. On the top Juliette was a little behind some others and we knew that she could come back on the descent. We then focused on the sprint and got third place in the end which is really good, taking some bonus seconds and putting us into the same place on GC for now. It’s a nice start and it’s close to the best scenario we could have hoped for, so we’re really happy with today.”