Abarca Sports organisation claims 19th Grand Tour win

World Champion dominates 'Corsa Rosa', with three stage wins plus her fourth overall success; Telefónica-backed squad takes team GC and makes almost all podiums in their sixth consecutive Grand Tour triumph.

The Movistar Team will never be able to forget the times it’s witnessing together with Annemiek van Vleuten. Just a couple of months before the Dutch ‘Campionissima’ leaves competitive racing, the Telefónica-backed squad was able to enjoy with her another Grand Tour victory, at a 34th Giro Donne they dominated from start to finish with ‘Miek’ and her team-mates.

Three stages -the ‘inaugural’ one (due to the cancellation of the ITT) in Marradi and the uphill finishes of Canelli (day six) and Alassio (7th)-, the Maglia Rosa as first overall -four wins: she ends up just one short for Fabiana Luperini’s record-, the Points + QOM jerseys and the team GC are the splendid results obtained by the squad here led by Sebastián Unzué, Jorge Sanz and Jürgen Roelandts, which covered the last route towards Olbia, in Sardinia, with no major difficulties.

The splendid work from Liane Lippert -several times close to a stage win-, Paula Patiño -into the GC top-20, just like the German champion-, Sara Martín -author of phenomenal improvements over the last two months-, Aude Biannic, Sheyla Gutiérrez -always so solid in key moments- and Floortje Mackaij -on the attack towards Sassari on Saturday- made possible for the Blues to celebrate theire second consecutive Giro win.

The Abarca Sports organisation thus gets up to 19 Grand Tours, already four of them -considering stageraces of seven and more stages- with a women’s squad which now chains six consecutive wins in the equivalent races, or those organised by the same companies, of Tour, Giro and Vuelta (from the 2021 Ceratizit Challenge to this year’s ‘Corsa Rosa’). A milestone no one else in cycling can improve nor match.

Annemiek van Vleuten:

“Winning the GC is always super special because you need to do it with a team. I did win it with different teams, this is the second one with Movistar, and I am super proud of my team to finish it off. It’s always stressful, but you have the team around you, that makes it special.”