Anna van der Breggen takes fourth Giro d’Italia Donne title

After a strong 10 days of racing, Anna van der Breggen (SDWorx) has taken her fourth Giro d’Italia Donne overall win. The Dutch rider finished second in the opening time trial. On the following stage van der Breggen knocked Ruth Winder (Trek-Segafredo) out of the race leader position, which she was able to hold on to until the end of the race.

SDWorx’s sweep

Van der Breggen wasn’t alone in her victory—her teammates worked to support her while also finding success in the race. On the Stage 2, a mountain top finish saw van der Breggen take first with teammates Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio finishing second and Demi Vollering third.

The 31-year-old also took the win on the fourth stage and third on Saturday’s mountain top finish, while Moolman-Pasio and Vollering finished first and second respectively.  In the end, the three SDWorx riders place first (van der Breggen) second (Moolman-Pasio) and third (Vollering) in the general classification.

Along with the maglia rosa, van der Breggen also took the maglia ciclamino (purple jersey) for the points classification, finishing with 58 points, 9 points ahead of Emma Norsgaard (Movistar Team).

Niamh Fisher-Black, also riding for SDWorx won the white jersey of the best young rider classification.

Victory for @AnnavdBreggen !!

The last stage for @CorynRivera ! pic.twitter.com/VEg94yIGeQ

— Giro Donne (@GiroItaliaDonne) July 11, 2021

SDWorkx left a few jerseys for the rest of the teams—the green mountain classification went to Lucinda Brand (Trek-Segafredo) and Marta Cavalli (FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope) won the blue jersey, which is awarded to the best Italian rider.

Coverage lacking

At the 2020 edition of the Giro d’Italia Donne, the race organizer failed to provide the minimum 45 minutes of live television coverage required for all top-tier Women’s WorldTour races, which sparked the UCI to demote the race from Women’s WorldTour status to Women’s ProSeries.

With new management, race organizers PMG Sport said they were seeking to adhere to the UCI’s requirements in order to return the race to the UCI Women’s World Tour in 2022, but coverage for the event was sporadic at best.

Only the final few kilometres of most stages were broadcast and, with 4G issues, there was no live coverage of Saturday’s mountain top queen stage.