OFFICIAL Stage 4 Results
Laurens De Jong
Hello, Giro d’Italia Women Gamers!
STAGE Grade: A-
I rate today’s stage an A-. That’s a lot for a time trial! It’s the right grade, though — a beautiful ride up from Belluno, general classification implications everywhere, a tactical choice of time trial bike or no, and of course a giant surprise with Anna van der Breggen completely demolishing Demi Vollering.
Route: 4/5 GC: 4/5 Tactics: 4/5 Sprint: 0/5 Surprises: 5/5
Know your history! Because I didn’t. In the 2021 Giro d’Italia for women Anna van der Breggen beat Demi Vollering in the climb time trial by over a minute. In 2019 Annemiek van Vleuten beat van der Breggen by a minute. In 2018 van Vleuten beat Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio by over two minutes. In 2017 van Vleuten beat van der Breggen by nearly a minute.
Every time there’s a climb time trial in the Giro d’Italia Women, the winner has a margin of a minute or so over everyone else. What happened today shouldn’t be a surprise, then. But it was to me, I did not see it coming. Neither did many others.
Vollering has been winning everything this spring. Six of the nine races she started. Seemingly at will. Then today: nothing. In a race that should have fit her perfectly. The one-minute margin may not have been a surprise, that Vollering was on the short end of that margin was the bigger surprise.
On the other side of this surprise, what to make of van der Breggen? After that 2021 Giro-winning season she retired. Took a seat in the team car as an assistant directeure sportive. The year that Team SD Worx – ProTime won everything, sometimes with Vollering, sometimes with Lotte Kopecky, sometimes with Lorena Wiebes.
Then she came back to the peloton. Racing at age 36. And she nearly won the Vuelta a España Femenina and now she has a formidable enough gap that she’s the favorite to win the 2026 Giro d’Italia Women. Twenty or thirty years from now, one of you will be writing race reports and talking about the 2020’s, when Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard were alien superpowers in men’s cycling, and van der Breggen a phenomenon in women’s cycling.
Van der Breggen chose a time trial bike for today’s race. Marlen Reusser did not. I have no idea what would be faster for anyone, let alone specifically for those riders. Van der Breggen was in the time trial bars for almost the entire climb, which is normally not possible. But van der Breggen was an alien superpower today.
Vollering was also on a time trial bike, but she was out of the bars for almost the entire climb. And she never looked comfortable. Chicken and egg, though: did she lose because she wasn’t in the aero bars? Or was she not in the aero bars because she didn’t have the legs? Hard to tell. Wednesday’s race will tell us more.
Alison Jackson was awarded the combattività prize after yesterday’s stage. That’s the third day in a row I mention her. And Sara Segala from Team Mendelspeck E-Work finished outside the time limit. I thought you don’t see that too often, OTL in a time trial, but in that 2021 affair by van der Breggen, twelve riders finished outside the time limit.
Eva van Agt pedaled to 62nd place in the stage today. I thought that was a respectable result and objectively it is, but she was the slowest of her team today. Four of them were within a few seconds of each other, though. So she’s just doing what the team expects from her.
Her other teammates were Vollering in third, Lauren Dickson in sixth, and Célia Gery in 33rd. I’m telling you this to illustrate the way a pro team works. Van Agt, Amber Kraak, Vittoria Guazzini, and Ally Wollaston weren’t expected to finish in the top 25, but riding for a team like FDJ, they’re not expected to goof off, either.
Watch the TNT Sports highlights HERE.
We’re living in bizzarro world in our Giro d’Italia Women game. Team Amalia, normally the sprinters’ team, won the time trial stage. Most points from the stage, most points from classifications, most points overall, and most riders in the Top-25 (ten). The grand slam, making up ground they lost each of the first three stages.
Team Charles and Team Ansel were well behind, although not far apart from each other. The upshot is that nothing changed in the standings today.
Wednesday’s stage will take the riders through Cortina d’Ampezzo — the men were near here on Friday, but the women will turn in the other direction towards Tre Croci. A normal person would take Funivia Faloria, an aerial tramway that was built in 1977 and looks that way. The peloton though will ride up to Rio Gere. From there you can take a chairlift to take the ski run of the same name. This is the most stunning ski run in the entire Dolomites. Proof that God may have invented the bicycle, He also invented ski runs in Italy. And the Dolomites, He made those, too.
It’s going to be a beautiful day in those Dolomites for us viewers. And it will tell us who will win the 2026 Giro d’Italia. I think. One day after putting on the Maglia Rosa, Anna van der Breggen will have to go on the defense already. Two category 1 climbs, and then the same category 3 climb twice, and in between it’s never flat. On the attack we should see Demi Vollering, Marlen Reusser, Elisa Longo Borghini, and all the other general classification riders.
There are some wildcard possibilities, too. If Vollering and her team wait until the final climb, and don’t drop everyone, we’ll see what we saw on Monday: everyone comes back, it’s a stalemate. I don’t think FDJ United – SUEZ will want to repeat that, though. I hope and expect a Vollering attack no later than the second climb, up the Passo di Sant’Antonio. And then a long solo ride from Vollering.
Standings after stage 4:
|
Rank |
Name |
Points |
WAS |
MOVES |
|
1 |
Team Ansel* |
785 |
1 |
0 |
|
2 |
Team Charles* |
780 |
2 |
0 |
|
3 |
Team Amalia* |
724 |
3 |
0 |
Standings after stage 4 (including adults):
|
Rank |
Name |
Points |
WAS |
MOVES |
|
1 |
Team Kent |
826 |
2 |
1 |
|
2 |
Team Charlotte |
794 |
5 |
3 |
|
3 |
Team Ansel* |
785 |
1 |
-2 |
|
4 |
Team Charles* |
780 |
3 |
-1 |
|
5 |
Team Laurens |
774 |
4 |
-1 |
|
6 |
Team Amalia* |
724 |
9 |
3 |
|
7 |
Team Kate |
676 |
6 |
-1 |
|
8 |
Team Kari |
644 |
8 |
0 |
|
9 |
Team Ellie |
638 |
7 |
-2 |
|
10 |
Team Corsa |
637 |
10 |
0 |
|
11 |
Team Julie |
600 |
11 |
0 |
Complete breakdown of points from stage 4:
|
Name |
STAGE RESULTS |
PINK JERSEY |
PURPLE JERSEY |
BLUE JERSEY |
WHITE JERSEY |
POINTS/CLASS |
TOTAL |
PREVIOUS |
CUM. TOTAL |
|
Team Amalia* |
213 |
50 |
8 |
14 |
0 |
72 |
285 |
439 |
724 |
|
Team Ansel* |
170 |
38 |
13 |
12 |
0 |
63 |
233 |
552 |
785 |
|
Team Charles* |
175 |
39 |
13 |
14 |
0 |
66 |
241 |
539 |
780 |
Complete breakdown of points from stage 4 (including adults):
|
Team Amalia* |
213 |
50 |
8 |
14 |
0 |
72 |
285 |
439 |
724 |
|
Team Ansel* |
170 |
38 |
13 |
12 |
0 |
63 |
233 |
552 |
785 |
|
Team Charles* |
175 |
39 |
13 |
14 |
0 |
66 |
241 |
539 |
780 |
|
Team Charlotte |
210 |
44 |
9 |
14 |
5 |
72 |
282 |
512 |
794 |
|
Team Corsa |
176 |
39 |
6 |
15 |
0 |
60 |
236 |
401 |
637 |
|
Team Ellie |
134 |
24 |
8 |
8 |
5 |
45 |
179 |
459 |
638 |
|
Team Julie |
143 |
37 |
8 |
14 |
0 |
59 |
202 |
398 |
600 |
|
Team Kari |
138 |
30 |
8 |
13 |
0 |
51 |
189 |
455 |
644 |
|
Team Kate |
148 |
37 |
8 |
15 |
0 |
60 |
208 |
468 |
676 |
|
Team Kent |
211 |
45 |
13 |
14 |
0 |
72 |
283 |
543 |
826 |
|
Team Laurens |
173 |
38 |
13 |
12 |
0 |
63 |
236 |
538 |
774 |
-Laurens.