Franziska Koch fights to brilliant 3rd in final stage, Juliette Labous 5th on GC at Giro d’Italia Women

The last day of racing at the Giro d’Italia Women saw the peloton tackle another day over the climbs, but without the big summit finish. However, the testing terrain and hot conditions would make for another challenging day in the saddle. Looking to leave their mark on the race for one final time, Team dsm-firmenich PostNL aimed to animate the afternoon in an attempt to go for the stage win.

From the off it was cagey in the peloton and became more a race of attrition as they tackled the early climbs, with the peloton slowly thinning down. Some strong support from the team saw Franziska Koch and Juliette Labous make it over the top of the highest peak of the day in the around 30-rider strong peloton. After that the attacks followed with both Koch and Labous trying their luck, with Koch eventually forcing clear a trio on her second big attack.

The trio worked well together and extended their advantage over the Maglia Rosa group, and heading onto the uncategorised climbs and drag up to the line they held roughly 45 seconds over the bunch. A relentless Koch came back to the other duo in the break after initially losing contact on the penultimate climb, making sure she was in the mix to go for the stage. With the finish gantry in sight, it was a slog to the line as the sprint opened up. Koch gave her everything, gritting her teeth, but just couldn’t come around the other two; settling for a strong third place on the day.

Back in the Maglia Rosa group there were attacks on the run-up to the line, where Labous sprinted to fifth place on the stage; the same result that she and the team secured in the overall GC battle as well.

Speaking after the stage Koch said: “It was a really hard day. It was on from the beginning because Lidl-Trek would have benefited from a break going to take the stage whereas SD Worx wanted to keep it together to go for the bonus seconds. We were following the moves and looking for our moment to go for it, as we knew that they would have the horsepower to control it in the beginning. We knew at one point that the teams looking to control would run out of firepower but unfortunately it happened after all of the climbing, but I survived. We had some fun on the downhill and looked for our moments. At one point Juliette was gone, then it came back and afterwards I saw a good chance and went for it. It was a nice break of three and we all just committed to it. Of course we always want to win but looking at the finish I did everything I could, I already got dropped on the climb before but came back, so I tried everything so can be really happy with third. I think it was a good week for us. Juliette gave everything she had on the mountain stages. There’s not much more than you can do that. We did really good with our positioning so the team was good there. Sometimes you just have to accept that others are stronger. We kept the motivation high within the group all week, we were always going for it each day, and I think that’s the most important thing in a stage race.”

Team dsm-firmenich PostNL coach Kelvin Dekker added: “Yesterday we were a bit disappointed so we went in today and try to flick the switch and go full for the stage win. We needed full commitment from the team to go for it, and make sure we got into the right situation. Everyone did their part in attacking and making things hard. Also Juliette really attacked, not with the idea of getting away herself but to set things up for someone to go after that. Franzi really did an amazing job to be up there in a group of only 25 riders after all of this climbing. She got away in a group of three and it was clear pretty quickly that this was a good breakaway, and they worked well together and were strong. The final was just a tiny bit too hard for her to beat the other two. I think third is something to be proud of for Franzi personally but also after some good work from the whole team. I think at the Giro in general we did what we could do. We had some bad luck with crashes or issues at key moments but to end it like this and with fifth in GC then it is not bad. We did everything we could and have no regrets, and that’s the most important thing.”