The Giro dell’Emilia Donne has existed only since 2014, but it has already developed the sort of identity that many longer-running races spend decades trying to build. The setting is a major reason. Bologna’s climb to the Santuario della Madonna di San Luca is short, steep and instantly recognisable, turning the final kilometres into a test of positioning, climbing power and nerve.
That has given the women’s race a clear place in the Italian autumn. It sits below the Women’s WorldTour as a UCI Women’s ProSeries event, yet its winners include world champions, Grand Tour contenders and riders who have shaped an era of women’s cycling. Elisa Longo Borghini is the defining name, with four victories, while Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig, Demi Vollering, Mavi García and Kim Le Court have all added their own chapter.
The race began in 2014 with an old Italian name behind it
Gruppo Sportivo Emilia launched the women’s Giro dell’Emilia in 2014 alongside a men’s event whose history stretches back to 1909. That gave the new race a useful foundation. It did not need to invent a location, an organising culture or a late-season place in the calendar. It could instead build around the prestige already attached to the Giro dell’Emilia name and the Bologna finale.
Rossella Ratto won that first edition, beating Edwige Pitel and Giorgia Bronzini. The early podium already hinted at the type of race Emilia could become. Ratto was an aggressive all-rounder, Pitel brought endurance and Bronzini was one of the outstanding fast finishers of her generation. The finish was selective, but not so one-dimensional that only pure climbers could matter.
The event moved into the UCI Women’s ProSeries when that level was introduced in 2020. It remains a step below the Women’s WorldTour, but its calendar position and route mean major teams still have strong reasons to race it. Autumn form is often uneven, championship programmes are ending and riders arrive with very different levels of freshness. That makes the result less predictable than the repeated San Luca finish might suggest.
San Luca became the race’s defining problem
The climb to San Luca is the feature that separates Giro dell’Emilia Donne from a generic hilly one-day race. The decisive ascent is around two kilometres long and averages close to 10%, with steeper ramps that immediately punish poor positioning. It runs beside Bologna’s famous portico, creating a finish that is visually distinctive as well as tactically demanding.
The important detail is that San Luca does not behave like a long mountain climb. There is no twenty-minute effort in which riders can settle into threshold and slowly expose weaker climbers. The speed changes sharply. Teams fight for the bottom, the gradient rises hard, gaps open quickly and a rider can move from apparently comfortable to completely out of contention in a few hundred metres.
That rewards riders with both aerobic depth and acceleration. Longo Borghini fits that pattern, but so do winners such as Vollering and Uttrup Ludwig. The ProCyclingUK beginner’s guide to Giro dell’Emilia Donne 2026 goes into the modern route and explains why San Luca remains the point around which the race is organised.
Longo Borghini built the first real dynasty
Elisa Longo Borghini won the second edition in 2015 and immediately repeated the result in 2016. She then returned to win again in 2022 and 2024, giving her four victories across a nine-year span. No other rider has matched that record.
Those wins matter because they came in different phases of her career. The first pair belonged to a rider already established among the best one-day racers in the world but still building the enormous palmarès that followed. By 2022 and 2024, she had become one of the reference points of the modern peloton, capable of winning stage races, cobbled Classics and steep uphill one-day events.
San Luca suited the breadth of that skill set. Longo Borghini could absorb a hard approach, stay near the front when the road narrowed and then make the climb selective without needing to wait for a sprint. Her four wins also prevented the race from developing a simple pattern in which a new generation automatically displaced the previous one. Emilia instead became a place where experience could remain decisive.
The winners list quickly became international
After Longo Borghini’s early double, Tatiana Guderzo won in 2017 and Rasa Leleivytė in 2018. Demi Vollering then took the 2019 edition before Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig won in 2020. Mavi García followed in 2021, Longo Borghini returned in 2022, Uttrup Ludwig claimed a second victory in 2023 and Longo Borghini took number four in 2024.
Kim Le Court added another international dimension in 2025. The Mauritian champion attacked decisively on the final San Luca ascent and finished 24 seconds ahead of Niamh Fisher-Black, with Yara Kastelijn third. It was a result that fitted the modern profile of the race: a selective but explosive uphill finale after a day in which the peloton still had to deal with breakaways, positioning and the approach into Bologna.
The diversity of the winners is important. Italy remains central to the event, but Emilia has not become a protected domestic race. Dutch, Danish, Spanish, Lithuanian and Mauritian riders have all won. That mirrors the broader internationalisation of women’s professional cycling over the same period, a development also visible in the changing winners of the Giro d’Italia Women.
The approach to Bologna has become more important
It is easy to reduce the Giro dell’Emilia Donne to its final climb, but the route has gradually developed into more than a long run-up to San Luca. Mirandola became a start location in 2024, taking the race through the flatter Bassa Modenese before the profile becomes more demanding closer to Bologna.
That creates a useful contrast. The early kilometres can encourage breakaways and give teams time to establish control, but the race becomes increasingly compressed as it approaches the city. Crosswinds can matter on open roads, while repeated changes of direction and the fight for position become more important as the decisive climbs approach.
The 2025 race underlined that development. Four riders escaped early, Monte Calvo helped reduce the field and further attacks followed before the first of two San Luca ascents. By the time the favourites reached the final climb, the race had already been filtered. Le Court’s attack looked explosive, but it was built on three hours of accumulated work rather than a standing-start hill climb.
Autumn timing changes the way the race is ridden
Giro dell’Emilia Donne arrives when the season is already long. Riders may have raced the Giro, Tour de France Femmes, major stage races and world championships before reaching Italy. Others arrive fresher after lighter summer programmes. That variation creates tactical opportunities which are much less common in the spring, when most major contenders are building towards the same sequence of races.
Teams therefore have to judge form rather than reputation. A rider who would normally be the obvious leader may be carrying fatigue, while a teammate who has raced less can arrive with better legs. The climb is short enough that one strong day can overturn the normal hierarchy. That has helped prevent the race from becoming too predictable despite the repeated use of the same landmark finish.
The Italian autumn also gives Emilia a useful connection to the rest of the late-season one-day programme. Riders who perform well here are often the same athletes suited to other hilly races that reward climbing strength without requiring the sustained mountain effort of a stage race. Emilia functions as both a target in its own right and a form check for the final weeks of competition.
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Photo Credit: Unipublic/Naike Ereñozaga
A short history has already produced real traditions
The women’s Giro dell’Emilia is still young enough that every new edition materially changes its record book. Longo Borghini’s four victories remain a large share of the race’s entire history, while Uttrup Ludwig is the only other multiple winner. That gives the event a sense of a tradition still being built rather than one inherited from distant decades. It also means the next few editions can alter the hierarchy quickly: one repeat winner or a new run of dominance would immediately reshape a winners list that is still compact enough for individual riders to leave a large imprint.
Yet the important pieces are already in place. The race has a recognisable finish, a clear tactical identity and a winners list strong enough to give the result weight. It has also survived the transition from a smaller 1.1 event into the Women’s ProSeries without losing the feature that made it distinctive in the first place.
That is why San Luca matters so much to the race’s history. The climb does not guarantee a famous winner, but it gives every edition the same basic challenge. As the field changes and women’s cycling becomes deeper, the question remains consistent: who can arrive at the foot of San Luca with enough left to turn two steep kilometres in Bologna into a major autumn victory?
