Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon-SRAM) won stage 5 of the Giro d’Italia Donne with a 24-kilometre solo, narrowly holding off maglia rosa Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar Team) to take the biggest victory of her career.
Niedermaier had attacked just before the top of the penultimate classified climb of the day and started the six-kilometre Sant’Ignazio with a one-minute advantage on the group of favourites.
Van Vleuten and Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek) made their move on the final climb and quickly distanced the rest of the group, but Niedermaier held on to 11 seconds on Van Vleuten and 14 seconds to Longo Borghini at the top.
On the technical descent, Van Vleuten went off the asphalt but did not crash and quickly returned to the road. Longo Borghini was less fortunate, overcooking a corner, crashing into the forest, and losing a lot of time.
The final kilometres to the finish were a pursuit race between Niedermaier and Van Vleuten, but Niedermaier managed to hold on to an eight-second gap.
1:25 minutes down, Niamh Fisher-Black (Team SD Worx) led home the next group with Juliette Labous (Team dsm-firmenich), Veronica Ewers (EF Education-TIBCO-SVB), and Gaia Realini (Lidl-Trek).
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