ROME — Dutch rider Demi Vollering won the queen stage of the women’s Giro d’Italia, shorn of the final 28 kilometres due to a slab of ice threatening to crash onto the road.
The eighth and penultimate stage had originally been set for a summit finish in Sestriere before organisers decided at the last minute to move the finish line to one kilometre below the Colle delle Finestre because of an “unstable ice slab threatening to fall onto the road”.
Initial ice fall had already been cleared shortly before the riders passed through in the Italian Alps. “It was just too dangerous,” said the organisers according to AFP.
In the end, Vollering claimed her second victory of this Giro on a hastily improvised finish line.
She edged out Canada’s Isabella Holmgren, Germany’s Antonia Niedermaier, and fellow Dutch rider Anna van der Breggen in a four-way sprint finish.
Vander Breggen leads Vollering by 50 seconds, with Niedermaier another 40 seconds or so behind
Van der Breggen retained the leader’s pink jersey on the eve of the final stage over 145km around Saluzzo at the foot of the Alps in northwestern Italy.
