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Giro d’Italia Internazionale Femminile kicks off on Canada Day

Kirchmann, Canuel and Albrecht in Italy

June 30, 2016
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The Giro d’Italia Internazionale Femminile, the longest and most prestigious stage race of the inaugural UCI Women’s World Tour, launches on Canada Day in Gaiarine, Veneto, with a pan-flat 2-km time trial. Two of Canada’s three road cycling Olympians will be in contention, as will the two Boels-Dolmans riders who have dominated the season so far.

The first few stages are sprinters’ days, although Stage 2 has a little kick-up to the finish. The GC scrap will start on Stage 5, which features a big lump in its profile.


Stage 6 is the queen stage, with a lot of climbing packed into its 118.6-km, including a clamber to the finish in Madonna della Guardia.


The GC tussle doesn’t have any respite, as Stage 7 is the race’s long time trial, 21.9-km of pretty flat roads.

Edition 27 of the Giro d’Italia Internazionale Femminile finishes with two sprinters’ stages, although a climb 13-km from the line on the final day to Verbania will thin out the pack.

WorldTour leader Megan Gaurnier (USA/Boels-Dolmans) and her British teammate Lizzie Armitstead are among the favourites. Armitstead led the WorldTour for most of the early season until Guarnier took the Tour of California title. Armitstead recently won the Aviva Women’s Tour in Britain. The only other stage race of the WorldTour season saw Chloe Hosking (Australia/WiggleHigh5) take the flowers in the Tour of Chongming Island.

Canadian Leah Kirchmann, recently named to the Rio Olympic Games squad, was third in that Tour of Chongming Island and sits sixth in the WorldTour rankings. She’s part of the Liv-Plantur team. Another Boels-Dolmans athlete is Karol-Ann Canuel, also an Olympian. Canuel was a key part of Gaurnier’s wins at the Tour of California and the Philadelphia Cycling Classic. Bepink’s Lex Albrecht is the third Canadian in Italy.

Everyone will be wary of reigning champion Anna van der Breggen (The Netherlands/Rabobank-Liv), even though she crashed out of the Aviva Women’s Tour. Van der Breggen also was victorious in this season’s La Flèche Wallonne Féminine.

Other riders to watch are Wiggle-High5’s Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy) and Mara Abbott (USA), two-time winner and last year’s runner-up.

In the late-90’s Canadian Linda Jackson was twice runner-up to five-time Giro d’Italia Internazionale Femminile champion Fabiana Luperini.