Alé BTC Ljubljana team is ready to start one of the most important events of the season, the Giro Rosa, the women’s Giro d’Italia, scheduled from tomorrow Friday 11th to Saturday 19th September. Nine stages that will take place in Central and Southern Italy. The start will be given tomorrow with a team time trial in Grosseto, in Tuscany, and in the following days stages have been drawn that, even if without big climbs, will not save pitfalls and difficulties. The novelty of this year is the inclusion of a stage with the dirt road. The end will be Saturday 19th September in Motta Montecorvino, in the Foggiano area, in Puglia.
Alé BTC Ljubljana line-up for the Giro Rosa 2020: Mavi Garcia, Tatiana Guderzo, Eugenia Bujak, Maaike Boogaard, Anna Trevisi and Urska Zigart.
The Italian champion Marta Bastianelli will be absent, despite herself, when she is struggling with some health problems. The italian rider, in fact, in the last few days underwent some tests which found that in the past months, without her knowledge, she had mononucleosis. The disease is no longer active at the moment, but the girl has not yet recovered physically and the very difficulties she had experienced in the last races she had taken part in had caused a wake-up call and pushed the athlete to investigate the situation further with tests. The team’s medical staff felt that it was not appropriate for Marta to take part in a stage race at this time. Obviously the displeasure is a lot, but the rider, in agreement with the technical staff, decided to think about the full physical recovery in order to prepare as well as possible for the end of the season.
The sports director Fortunato Lacquaniti said: “We are sorry for Marta, but at the moment it is the most correct choice. Without Bastianelli also change our approach, our goals and therefore our race tactics. We will try to take care of the general classification with Mavi Garcia and we will try to enter every day in some breakaway looking for some stage win. With Marta we would have had a chance even in the sprint, but without her we will have to create other opportunities”.
What’s positive is that the team has recently shown a great general condition. “We are very happy with what we have been able to do so far. Only two other teams like Trek and Mitchelton have eight victories, so we can only be satisfied with the work of our girls”, concluded Lacquaniti.
Giro Rosa 2020 – the stages:
1/a TAPPA – Venerdì 11 settembre | Grosseto-Grosseto, cronosquadre, 16.8 km
2/a TAPPA – Sabato 12 settembre | Civitella Paganico-Arcidosso, 124.8 Km
3/a TAPPA – Domenica 13 settembre | Santa Fiora-Assisi, 142.2 Km
4/a TAPPA – Lunedì 14 settembre | Assisi-Tivoli, 170.3 Km
5/a TAPPA – Martedì 15 settembre | Terracina-Terracina, 110.3 Km
6/a TAPPA – Mercoledì 16 settembre | Torre del Greco-Nola, 97.5 km
7/a TAPPA – Giovedì 17 settembre | Nola-Maddaloni, 112.5 Km
8/a TAPPA – Venerdì 18 settembre | Castelnuovo della Daunia-San Marco La Catola, 91.4 Km
9/a TAPPA – Sabato 19 settembre | Motta Montecorvino-Motta Montecorvino, 109.8 Km
Official website: www.girorosa.com