Australian climber Sarah Gigante returns to action more than 365 days after serious crash: 'An important milestone'

It’s taken a long time—a very long time. But for Sarah Gigante, the end of her injury woes is finally in sight. The Australian was badly injured after a crash during training last year, but she’ll be back on the race course for the first time since the 2025 Tour de France Femmes.

Over the past two years, Gigante has shown that she is one of the best climbers in the peloton. In 2024, she finished seventh in the Tour de France Femmes, but a year later she delivered some absolutely top-notch results. She won two stages and the mountains jersey in the Giro d'Italia, and finished third in the overall standings. And if it weren’t for her fear of descending, she would have finished second in the Tour de France Femmes.

She ultimately finished in sixth place after losing a lot of time in the final stage. But the name Gigante was on everyone’s lips in the peloton: for the Australian, her potential seemed limitless. But she came crashing down from that cloud of euphoria in an instant. Two weeks after the Tour de France Femmes, she took a hard fall and broke her thighbone. Her recovery didn’t go well at all.

While a return early in 2026 had been the hope, that idea quickly faded. A year after the accident, she still couldn’t race, but the end is finally in sight: she will return at the Faun Tour, last year’s Tour Féminin Ardèche. “It’s been a long road to recovery for her, and this is an important milestone in her recovery, so it’s only natural that she’ll start the race without any pressure,” team manager Dani Christmas said on the team’s website.

For Gigante, it will feel like a weight off her shoulders. A year after her accident, she shared an update about her situation on Instagram. There, she said it certainly hadn't been easy. “Two surgeries, countless hours of rehab, and more postponed comeback dates than I care to count… it’s been a pretty tough year.”

"January turned into February, February turned into spring, and spring turned into summer. It was hard to watch the sport I love so much go on without me and to miss all three of the major tours. It was even harder to wonder when and how I would ever be able to race again, or when I would finally stop limping.”

In the Faun Tour, she will be joined by Belgian riders Lore De Schepper, Justine Ghekiere, and Emma Siegers. Urska Zigart is one of AG Insurance - Soudal’s key riders in the French race, while Megan Arens—who joined from Picnic PostNL—will also make her debut for the Belgian team. Top riders such as Anna van der Breggen, Mischa Bredewold, Juliette Berthet, and Niamh Fisher-Black will also be at the starting line.