Following the reduced bunch sprint into Occhiobello on stage 4 of the Giro Rosa, Jolien d'Hoore (Wiggle-High5) congratulated former teammate Chloe Hosking (Alé Cipollini) on the stage win. But it was d'Hoore that climbed to the top step. The Belgian road champion bested Hosking in a photo finish. Coryn Rivera (Team Sunweb) rounded out the podium.
A sleepy start gave way to a spirited finale on the 118-kilometre stage. Widely considered a day for the sprinters, stage 4 saw a general classification shake-up when the Boels-Dolmans Cycling Team split the peloton in the crosswinds during the final 50 kilometres.
"We went to the front as a full team and didn't look back," Lizzie Deignan told Cyclingnews. "The gap increased sufficiently for me to make the call for Anna [van der Breggen], Megan [Guarnier] and Amalie [Dideriksen] to stay in the wheels. It was down to the rest of us to push as hard as we could for as long as we could."
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64 riders had made the front split. Annemiek van Vleuten (Orica-Scott) who started the stage in second overall, 18-seconds behind race leader Anna van der Breggen (Boels-Dolmans), was not among them.
The miss proved costly with Van Vleuten, who dropped down to fourth place at 2:17. Elisa Longo Borghini (Wiggle-High5) moved up to second place at 26-seconds. Defending champion Megan Guarnier (Boels-Dolmans) jumped from fourth place to third at 1:57.
"The GC has been shaken up," Deignan noted. "We are in a really strong position. We are really confident heading into the second half of the race. Every rider on our team is strong and motivated. That makes us hard to beat."
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest Race Results http://ift.tt/2sGVkRX
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