Giro Donne: Blanka Vas wins uphill sprint on stage 8

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Blanka Vas (Team SD Worx) won stage 8 of the Giro d'Italia Donne, beating Chloé Dygert (Canyon-SRAM) and Liane Lippert (Movistar Team) in an uphill sprint to take her first Giro stage.

After an exciting stage with lots of attacks, the race came down to a sprint into the hilltop city centre of Sassari where Vas kept her cool and jumped out of Dygert's slipstream in the final 75 metres to win.

"It’s a dream, unbelievable. I didn’t think this morning that I could win, so I am really happy," said the 21-year-old Hungarian champion.

The heat of up to 40 degrees Celsius took its toll on the peloton, with riders constantly asking for water.

“At one moment in the last 30 minutes I didn’t have water anymore, but luckily my teammate Niamh [Fisher-Black] brought me some, then it was fine. In the sprint, my teammates were cheering into the radio, so I felt they trusted me, and I went for it,” said Vas.

There were no real changes in the general classification: With one stage to go, Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar Team) holds a lead of almost four minutes on Juliette Labous (Team DSM-Firmenich), with Gaia Realini (Lidl-Trek) in third place overall.

How it unfolded

After the transfer to Sardinia and a rest day, the penultimate stage of the Giro Donne started in Nuoro, continually going up or down on 125.7km to Sassari.

There were attacks from Giorgia Bariani, Alessia Vigilia (both Top Girls Fassa Bortolo), Petra Stiasny (Fenix-Deceuninck), Giorgia Vettorello (BePink-Gold), and Beatrice Rossato (Isolmant-Premac-Vittoria), but UAE Team ADQ made sure to bring all the moves back before the intermediate sprint.

Their climber Erica Magnaldi then won the uphill intermediate sprint to win three bonus seconds and move from fifth overall to fourth, one second ahead of Veronica Ewers (EF Education-TIBCO-SVB).

After a long downhill, the attacks began again: Mavi García (Liv Racing TeqFind), Sara Martín (Movistar Team), and Fisher-Black were the first to try, then Paula Patiño (Movistar Team) and Vas made a move.

Eventually Floortje Mackaij (Movistar Team) and Silvia Magri (Israel-Premier Tech Roland) succeeded in getting away. When the day’s only classified climb to Romana-Ittiri began, Magri could not keep up with Mackaij anymore who continued alone and crested the climb 1:20 minutes ahead of the peloton with just over 29km to go.

Her advantage quickly melted away in the rolling terrain that followed, and 26km from the finish, Ewers, Francesca Barale (Team DSM-Firmenich), and Fisher-Black bridged to Mackaij, prompting Realini to close the gap herself as Ewers and Fisher-Black could threaten her overall podium spot.

The next twelve kilometres saw Soraya Paladin (Canyon-SRAM), García, Anouska Koster (Uno-X Pro Cycling Team), Karolina Kumiega (UAE Team ADQ), Mackaij, Vas, Saray Roy (Canyon-SRAM), Justine Ghekiere (AG Insurance-Soudal Quick Step), Ruby Roseman-Gannon (Team Jayco AlUla, Franziska Koch (Team DSM-Firmenich), Eugénie Duval (FDJ-SUEZ), Katia Ragusa (Liv Racing TeqFind), and Elena Pirrone (Israel-Premier Tech Roland) trying to get away, but when the last attack was neutralised, the peloton readied itself for an uphill bunch sprint.

Team DSM-Firmenich led the peloton onto the 2.5-kilometre uphill finish, but Inge van der Heijden (Fenix-Deceuninck) pulled away on the ascent with her teammate Carina Schrempf on her wheel, launching the Austrian champion 1.8 km from the line.

Elinor Barker (Uno-X Pro Cycling Team) closed the gap to Schrempf with 1.5 km to go, then Paladin took over to keep the pace high through the flat part until the final turn 400 metres from the finish. Roy launched her lead-out as the road began to rise again, and Dygert started to move up at the 250-metre mark with Vas in her wheel.

Marianne Vos (Team Jumbo-Visma) came to the front with 150 metres to go but was swamped by Lippert, Ally Wollaston (AG Insurance-Soudal Quick Step) and Dygert who took the lead. On the last 75 metres, though, Vas came around the US champion to win the stage by more than a bike length.

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