Giro d’Italia Donne 2023: Lorena Wiebes sprints to Stage 3 win as Annemiek van Vleuten keeps pink

Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx) underlined her status as the world’s best sprinter with a dominant victory ahead of Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma) at Stage 3 at the Giro Donne.

Wiebes was delivered round the final corner by lead-out extraordinaire, Barbara Guarischi (SD Worx) and Vos was unable to come out of her slipstream. Chloe Dygert (Canyon//SRAM Racing), who was nursing a bruised sacrum after crashing on Friday’s time trial washout, took another impressive third-place in the American national champions jersey.

However, the finish was overshadowed by a big crash for Letizia Paternoster (Jayco-AlUla) after a touching fwheels in the final sprint. Jayco-AlUla have tweeted that she is fine apart from some road rash on her left arm.

Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) finished in the bunch to keep the pink jersey after a chaotic and incredibly fast run into the finish in Modena. The times for the general classification were taken 1km from the finish line after the CPA and organisers decided it was too complicated and dangerous.

SD Worx have been the dominant team in women’s cycling this season and would have been delighted to bounce back with a victory after a poor display yesterday in which their young GC hope, Niamh Fisher-Black, only finished 22nd and 2:49 on stage winner Van Vleuten.

The Dutch super-team have 47 victories this season, more than four times as many as any other Women’s World Tour team. Wiebes was signed from DSM last summer as a surprise and they brought Guarischi over from Movistar to do exactly the job she did today – get Wiebes in position and launch her to the line.

“I’m really happy to take the stage win, the team worked really hard today and Barbara Guarischi did a really good lead-out with Elena [Cecchini],” Wiebes said after the finish. “I really like to race the Giro Donne, I enjoy it here in Italy.”

“Towards the final I always feel the pressure because I have to deliver for the team and the girls work really hard for me, so then I always want to win.”

SD Worx were absent from the front of the peloton for much of the final 10km, but moved up perfectly when they needed to.

“We were a bit far in the last kilometres, but I fully trust Barbara [Guarischi] as last lead-out and she delivered me perfectly,” said Wiebes. “She went in fast in the final corner so I only had to sprint 150 metres and the team survived the climb in the middle well.”

More to follow.

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