New generation brings the fight to Vollering and Van der Breggen at Giro d'Italia Women: 'Still learning'

Anna van der Breggen and Demi Vollering showed their legs in the high mountains of the Giro d’Italia. Where everyone expected Marlen Reusser and Elisa Longo Borghini to provide the toughest opposition to the Dutch leaders, the pressure came from the younger generation. Isabella Holmgren (Lidl-Trek) and Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon//SRAM) put in a brilliant display.

It was an extremely tough day in the Dolomites, and the gaps were created thanks to a move from Vollering. However, the FDJ-SUEZ European champion could not distance Van der Breggen, Holmgren and Niedermaier. The German is only 23, while Holmgren, the Canadian white jersey wearer, had just turned 21 at her most recent birthday.

“It was a super hard day,” Holmgren said in her flash interview after stage five. “It was not necessarily my favourite terrain and I am still learning how to race like that in the finale with a small group, so I am super happy with today. I am really looking forward to the coming days with a few longer climbs. It is such a long race that you have to look at how you feel every day.”

Holmgren holds the white jersey as best young rider in the race, but the very young climber is also clear about her main goal in this Giro d’Italia Women. “The main goal is still the general classification. If the white jersey comes at the end of the week, that is a super nice bonus.” She took over the jersey after an excellent mountain time trial on Tuesday, where she finished tenth.

“I did my best performance today, so I am really happy with that,” Holmgren said on the team’s website after the time trial. “We’ve really had a good start to the Giro with the team, I hope it keeps going upwards from here. I think holding on to the white jersey would be a nice goal, but we just have to see how we play it. There are still a lot of stages to come and you never know what can happen.”

Holmgren finished seventh in the Giro d’Italia last year, but she appears to have taken another step forward. The same goes for Niedermaier, who finished fifth overall then. The German had bad luck earlier in this Giro at a terrible moment, but was able to limit the damage. That made it all the sweeter for the Canyon//SRAM rider when she could really let rip.

“I was finally able to show that I have good legs and that I am in good form,” Niedermaier says after the stage on her team’s website. “So I am very happy with the result. I was actually surprised that I could move up in the general classification, because I was already in a good position after yesterday’s time trial. I was more like: ‘Let’s see what happens today’.”

The German’s climbing legs are impressive, but even in a Dolomite stage she was already thinking about what comes next. “Of course I tried to stay with Demi and Anna. Demi attacked, but in the end we stayed together and went to the line with four of us. I tried not to waste too much energy, because there are still difficult stages to come.”