02.07.2024 World-Tour, News, Race news

GIRO D'ITALIA ROSTER ANNOUNCED

CANYON//SRAM Racing brings an exciting lineup to the Giro d’Italia Women starting Sunday, 7 July. The team’s roster will be Neve Bradbury, Elise Chabbey, Antonia Niedermaier, Soraya Paladin, Agnieszka Skalniak-Sójka, Alice Towers and Maike van der Duin. The team boasts a mix of experience with Elise and Soraya, who will race their fifth and eleventh editions alongside young climbing stars Neve and Antonia. Agnieszka, Alice and Maike all make their Giro d’Italia debut on Sunday.

The eight-day stage race starts with an opening 15.7km individual time trial in Brescia. The following stages cover all parcours from flat to undulating to gruelling mountain terrain. Sprinters and rouleurs will have the most opportunities in stages two through five. The tour offers early opportunities for the general classification contenders, but the climber’s time to shine will be spent in the mountains of Umbria during the final three stages. The queen stage on day seven, with two ascents of Passo Lanciano and a summit finish of Blockhaus, will test the peloton’s climbers over more than 3700m of elevation. The mountain stage follows a heavy climbing day on stage five and before the ultimate test of the Cat.1 climb, Castel del Monte, on the final stage between Pescara and L’Aquila.

Maike has returned to top form with strong bunch sprint performances at Vuelta a Burgos and Ford RideLondon Classique and will target the first bunch sprint that’s predicted on stage two. Teammate Elise, fresh from the Queen of the Mountain victory at the Tour de Suisse, will lead the group to race aggressively and seize opportunities alongside Italian rider Soraya.

Antonia, a Giro d’Italia stage winner in 2023, showed her climbing strengths have no bounds with phenomenal rides at La Vuelta Femenina by Carrefour and the recent Tour de Suisse, finishing sixth overall. Neve showed her climbing prowess with an impressive display in Tour de Suisse last month, storming to her first World Tour win and second World Tour GC podium in the 2024 season. The climbing duo are rightly considered among the favourites for the general and youth classifications.

RIDER QUOTES

Neve Bradbury: “I’m happy with the season so far. We started well in Australia at the Tour Down Under and kept going in the right direction. We aim to go into the Giro and improve again. Especially at the Tour de Suisse, we showed that we were a united group riding strongly together.

The Giro is my biggest target of the season. All my preparations have been for the Giro, and I’ve done all I can to be in the best shape for this race. We’ve shown we can fight against all teams and are ready for this grand tour.

It’s quite a challenging tour in general, with several lumpy stages. The first ITT stage will be important even though it’s flat. Blockhaus is critical, but there are a lot of stages that will play a role in GC. It won’t all be left to stage seven. Stage four has a challenging end with sharp, steep hills; stage six is also interesting. Blockhaus will be just hard, and it will depend on who has the legs on the day. Stage eight is hilly, and everyone’s fatigue will be high. It makes for an exciting Giro, and I can’t wait to start.”

Elise Chabbey: “I’m happy to be selected for my fifth Giro d’Italia. It’s always a super nice tour with different kinds of stages and many opportunities. We come there with Neve and Antonia, two young, talented climbers, and I’m excited to support them during the tour. I think stages two and five will be for the sprinters, stages three, seven and eight will determine the GC, and stages four and six can be more open. Those are the ones I’m the most excited about to grab my opportunities in some breakaways.”