Women’s Giro Rosa 2020 Stage 3 Preview – Tips, Contenders, Profile

Stage 3 sees a chance for the punchy climbers to take a stage win. In a finish remarkably similar to that of the Giro dell’Emilia, riders will climb just under 200 metres of elevation in around 3 km. Less steep than the epic San Luca climb, it will still test out the legs. Those who lost out in the Stage 1 team time trial will see an opportunity to either regain time on rivals or strike out for the stage win. The climbs earlier in the stage may catch out the odd rider with tired legs but the majority of the peloton should still be together going into the final climb.

Teams

• Mitchelton-Scott
• Ale BTC Ljubljana
• Aromitalia Vaiano
• Astana
• BePink
• Bizkaia Durango
• Boels-Dolmans
• Canyon SRAM
• CCC-Liv
• Ceratizit-WNT
• Cogeas-Mettler
• Cronos Casa Dorada
• Paule Ka
• Eurotarget-Bianchi-Vittoria
• FDJ Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope
• Lotto Soudal Ladies
• Lviv Cycling
• Movistar
• Servetto-Piumate-Beltrami TSA
• Team Sunweb
• Top Girls Fassa Bortolo
• Trek-Segafredo
• Valcar

Women’s Giro Rosa 2020 Stage 3 Profile

Women’s Giro Rosa 2020 Stage 3 Favourites

Katarzyna Niewiadoma got the finish of the Giro dell’Emilia all wrong. She was doing an all-out sprint much too early and afterwards she said that she’d got the pacing wrong for her finish. In recent races she’s been able to show enough punch to stay with some of the biggest names, this sort of small summit finish really suits her. FDJ were one of the biggest losers from the opening team time trial. It made Stage 2 interesting for Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig and she tried to get some time back. Stage 3 really suits her as the winner of the Giro dell’Emilia. She rode along with the early attacks by others, before striking out on her own at the perfect point.

The Queen of the Ardennes, Anna van der Breggen, will obviously be suited to this Mur de Huy style short, steep summit finish. It suits the perennial favourite Annemiek van Vleuten a little bit less, but she certainly won’t be losing any time in the GC battle either. Teammate Amanda Spratt will be an interesting foil. She does a good job of taking some of the pressure of Van Vleuten, whilst still getting good results herself. This stage profile is similar to the stage of the Emakumeen Bira she won in 2019.

Lizzie Deignan is another strong one-day for whom this sort of finish is meat and drink. Depending on what happens on Stage 2, she should still be a threat in the GC and could get into the leader’s pink jersey. She’ll just need to avoid the team crash that took Trek’s contenders out of the Giro dell’Emilia. Deignan’s teammate Elisa Longo Borghini took the leader’s pink jersey after Stage 1. She came close to winning the European Championships recently, hanging on with Van Vleuten late on. She’s shown she can outpunch some of the riders like Deignan (when they weren’t teammates) and Niewiadoma when she won Strade Bianche in 2017. She’s in great form in 2020 as well.

Mavi Garcia lost some time to her GC rivals in the opening team time trial but finished well on Stage 2. It’s tough to ignore her credentials on a hilly finish. CCC-Liv have lots of options for this stage. Marianne Vos should be there or thereabouts as usual and you can usually back Ashleigh Moolman on a climb. Their teammate Soraya Paladin might be up there too after finishing 9th in La Course and 6th in the Giro dell’Emilia.

Lizzy Banks won a stage in last year’s Giro Rosa and took an impressive 2nd in GP de Plouay, being beaten in the sprint by Lizzie Deignan. She does well on punchy Classics type finishes. There’s some hype building around her teammate Mikayla Harvey who is on the verge of getting a WWT top-10 finish. She’s been 12 at Strade Bianche, 13th at the GP de Plouay and 12th again at La Course. She had a great start to the Giro Rosa with her placing on Stage 2.

Sunweb’s Liane Lippert is re-finding her early season form. She snuck into the top-10 at La Course and was 12th at GP de Plouay. She likes a punchy finish, having won the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race earlier in the year with its steep sections near the finish. 2nd on the Burton Dassett stage of the Women’s Tour in 2019 behind Niewiadoma shows she could do similar here.

Women’s Giro Rosa 2020 Stage 3 Outsiders

If there are doubts about Rasa Leleivyte being suited for the Stage 2 finish, there’s no doubts about this one. The Giro dell’Emilia is one of her favourite races with a steady set of podiums. The only issue is her being on a relatively small team and potentially having to do a lot of the position work herself before the main business end of the stage.

Elena Franchi is a young Italian rider who was 17th in the Giro dell’Emilia. Very quietly she was also 18th Overall in last year’s Giro Rosa. She’s another who will have lost time to stronger GC candidates in the time trial and might be given more of a leash to disappear off the front if possible. A top-10 at WWT level would be a huge result.

She might prove to be too far down the pecking order at CCC-Liv, but Sabrina Stultiens announced she was back with 5th in the Giro dell’Emilia. On a similar finish, she could blast away from the pack again, provided she’s not working for the other riders on her team.

Stage Prediction

1st
Katarzyna Niewiadoma
2nd
Anna van der Breggen
3rd
Lizzie Deignan