Silvia Persico of UAE Team ADQ won Giro dell’Appennino Donne 2026 on Sunday, beating Lucinda Brand of Lidl-Trek and Sarah Van Dam of Team Visma | Lease a Bike in a sprint from a select front group in Genova. The 111km Italian one-day race only truly opened in the hilly final third, but once the decisive move formed, the winning combination was there, even if a wrong turn by Viktória Chladoňová inside the final kilometre turned a six-rider finish into a sprint of five.
Late climbs finally turn control into selection
For much of the day, Giro dell’Appennino Donne followed a restrained pattern. The opening 70km from Novi Ligure did not offer enough to force the strongest riders into action, and the race remained largely under control until the route began to rise properly towards the finale.
The first meaningful break only came on the Passo dei Giovi, where Anneke Dijkstra of VolkerWessels attacked and was joined by Top Girls Fassa Bortolo duo Sara Luccon and Marta Pavesi. Dijkstra took the first mountain points and the trio briefly opened a gap of around a minute, but the move always looked more like a prompt for the favourites than a genuine race-winning attack.
That proved to be the case as the road tilted up again. Monica Trinca Colonel was one of the first major names to light the fuse from the peloton, and the response quickly came from the strongest teams in the race. Team Visma | Lease a Bike in particular used the climbs well and placed multiple riders near the front as the bunch was thinned and the original break was reeled back in.
What followed was the real moment of separation. The pressure from the bigger teams reduced the race to an elite front group that included Lucinda Brand, Niamh Fisher-Black, Persico, Célia Gery and several Team Visma | Lease a Bike riders, among them Sarah Van Dam and Viktória Chladoňová. From there, Giro dell’Appennino Donne stopped being a waiting game and became a contest between the riders best able to carry speed over the short climbs and still finish fast on flatter roads.
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Photo Credit: Vuelta a Burgos
Persico and Gery force the decisive move
With around 20km to go, Persico and Gery made the key acceleration of the race. Their move created the decisive split, and although they did not stay clear alone to the finish, they forced the selection that mattered. Behind them, the chasers organised through the strength in numbers of Lidl-Trek and Team Visma | Lease a Bike, who both still had multiple cards to play.
That chase eventually brought the lead group together at six riders. Brand and Fisher-Black made it across for Lidl-Trek, while Van Dam and Chladoňová joined from Team Visma | Lease a Bike. Persico and Gery were already there, giving the race a front group composed almost entirely of riders from the biggest teams in the field.
That balance mattered tactically. Persico had done the damage by going with Gery, but once the group swelled, she was able to race more economically and let Lidl-Trek and Team Visma | Lease a Bike contribute more to the work. With both teams having two riders present, there was every reason for them to help keep the move alive while still backing themselves in the finish.
Behind, there was no meaningful way back. The race had been selective enough on the climbs to strip the peloton of its depth, and once the six leaders committed, Giro dell’Appennino Donne belonged to them.
A wrong turn changes the shape of the finale
The final kilometre should have delivered a sprint between six riders, but the decisive detail came not from an attack, but from a mistake. Chladoňová, who had ridden strongly to help Team Visma | Lease a Bike stay heavily represented at the front, followed the diverted race motorbikes at a roundabout and took a wrong turn.
That error immediately reduced the group from six to five and removed one of Van Dam’s team-mates from the final sprint. It also stripped Team Visma | Lease a Bike of one tactical option in the run-in, leaving Van Dam as their sole remaining chance for victory in the final few hundred metres.
From there, the sprint was straightforward in shape even if the race itself had not been. Persico proved the fastest of the remaining five, taking her first win of the season ahead of Brand, with Van Dam sprinting to third. Gery followed in fourth and Fisher-Black in fifth, while Chladoňová was left to wonder what might have been after taking the wrong road so close to the line.
Van Dam said afterwards, “Unfortunately, I just missed out on my first victory, but I learned a lot from this race.” She also pointed to the strength of the collective effort from Team Visma | Lease a Bike, adding, “We were in the right place at the right moments and helped shape the race.”
That assessment felt fair. Team Visma | Lease a Bike had ridden Giro dell’Appennino Donne aggressively and with depth, and sports director Jan Boven reflected that in his post-race comments, saying, “Our plan was to stay patient in the opening phase and then strike as a team on the climbs. The riders executed that perfectly.”
Giro dell’Appennino Donne 2026 Result
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