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140km to go
We’re almost at the bottom of the descent and Bezzone, Spimi, Segato and Cagnazzo’s lead has extended to three minutes.
So it’s unlikely SD Worx-Protime will ride for a sprint today, though they almost certainly compete should the stage conclude that way. Expect either Barbara Guarischi or, more likely, Femke Gerritse to have a go.
With the loss of both Lorena Wiebes and Mikayla Harvey, SD Worx have a depleted team and they will to be firing on all five cylinders for Saturday’s Alpine stage.
It’s a long stage today and with only four riders up the road, the peloton may well allow them a huge lead. Segato is the closest to Anna van der Breggen on the GC, but she’s at 23.51, giving SD Worx little incentive to ride.
150km to go
Bezzone, Spimi, Segato and Cagnazzo seem to be established very quickly, their lead is already approaching two minutes, before the descent we mentioned.
Camilla Bezzone (Mendelspeck E-Work), Sharon Spimi (Top Girls Fassa Bortolo) and the Vini Fantini-Be Pink pair of Gaia Segato and Irene Cagnazzo have already built a lead of more than one minute.
And we have a small break of four women up the road already.
After 16km the peloton will drop down a 5km descent to Riva del Garda, on the shores of the lake, then it’s kilometre after beautiful kilometre along the lake shore.
Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) successfully defended the overall lead yesterday, despite having a small support team.
“It was a good day, but also a hard day,” she said.
Official start
Let’s go racing! From Ala, out of the hills and onto the Po Valley for what should be a sprint in Brescello, 160km later.
Once by the lake it’s still a little lumpy, but at 95km the riders will descend onto the flat plain of the Po Valley, and the final 60km contains only 100m of vertical ascent. And let’s not forget that wind.
We might still be up in the hills, but there’s only 657m of climbing today as we head downhill to the eastern shore of Lake Garda, which the race follows all the way south.
And we’re rolling for stage 6, we start with 3.9km of neutral….
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