A rolling stage but with a flat finale, there was a chance that stage five at the Giro d’Italia Women could be one for the breakaway artists. Team dsm-firmenich PostNL set out with the aim of making the break if it was a larger group, with Franziska Koch their main card to play, but however it soon became clear that not many other teams wanted to try and were happy for a sprint. In that situation, the team was originally going to go for Josie Nelson as their fast finisher but she expressed she didn’t have the best legs, so the call came to go for Koch instead. Coming into the finale, the team worked well together to position Koch and GC finisher Juliette Labous, but unfortunately in the last kilometre Koch found the gap disappear in front of her and she could never fully open up her sprint; taking tenth place at the line.
Speaking after the stage Koch said: “Our original goal of going for the breakaway didn’t succeed, as the bunch basically stayed all together. We made a late call to go for me in the sprint, since Josie said she didn’t felt super good today. I unfortunately got blocked a bit in the last 800 metres by some of the other lead-out riders so I could never fully go for it, but the girls did a good job navigating me and Juliette through the twisty and chaotic parts beforehand.”
