Elisa Longo Borghini left no doubt who the strongest rider at the Giro d'Italia was
After a thrilling, nail-biting campaign, Elisa Longo Borghini won the pink jersey — the famed Maglia Rosa — as the general classification winner of the Giro d’Italia on Sunday. The jersey never left Longo Borghini’s shoulders. She took the jersey by winning the Stage 1 time trial one week ago, then held on as competitors of all kits tried and failed to take it from her.
“Now this jersey is really mine. Today, we started the race with a lot of people doubting that this would happen,” Longo Borghini said. “All my teammates did an amazing job so I really want to say a big thank you to them. I am very proud to wear this Maglia Rosa in Italy with the Lidl-Trek logo on it. I will need some time to realize what I have done here.”
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This is what it means! Beautiful moments after the finish line for @ElisaLongoB and the Team 🩷🫶#GirodItaliaWomen pic.twitter.com/lxnCxHVYDp
— Lidl-Trek (@LidlTrek) July 14, 2024
FDJ-Suez’s Grace Brown was just one second back on Stage 1, but slipped back on the GC while Lotte Kopecky of Team SD Worx-Protime slowly moved up, stage after stage. After a thrilling battle on the fearsome double climb Blockhaus on Stage 7, Kopecky was just one second back of Longo Borghini on the overall heading into the final day of racing.
Stage 8 featured another big climb up Castel del Monte in the middle and a steep kicker into the finish line in L’Aquila. The profile suited Longo Borghini, who was able to mark Kopecky until just a few hundred meters to go, when she accelerated out of her group to cross the line solo — fourth on the stage and definitively the overall champion — pumping her fist.
“They were saying that Kopecky would out-sprint me, but I was like we have a one percent chance, we have one second to win and everyone in the team was super motivated to keep the Maglia Rosa and to keep the leadership,” Longo Borghini said. “I just wanted to cross the line with the Maglia Rosa to show that I was the strongest and that Lidl-Trek is the strongest team.”
Elisa receiving her custom painted Madone Gen 8 at the team bus.
Champagne time!
Longo Borghini’s win is one of the biggest in an already decorated career. The Italian rider had never won the overall at her home grand tour, despite stage wins in 2023 and 2020, and GC podium finishes in 2020 (third) and 2017 (second). It now joins her list of impressive GC wins like the Women’s Tour in 2022 and the UAE Tour in 2023, not to mention her many one-day triumphs, like her second career victory at the Tour of Flanders earlier this year. Longo Borghini was also the first Italian rider to win the overall at the women’s Giro d’Italia since Fabiana Luperini in 2008.
Sunday’s race played out in Lidl-Trek’s favor, with a strong breakaway of Ruth Edwards, Kimberley (Le Court) Pienaar and Franziska Koch going up the road with under 40 kilometers to go and maintaining a strong gap that held all the way to the line. Lidl-Trek was happy to let the breakaway go. It forced Kopecky and SD Worx-Protime to power the chase in the peloton, or else lose the bonifications she might need if the finish came down to a sprint. Meanwhile, Longo Borghini stayed attached to Kopecky’s wheel, never letting the Belgian rider get a gap.
The team that helped Elisa achieve her Maglia Rosa dreams.
“I just think we did something magnificent today as a team,” Longo Borghini said. “Everyone was really committed to bringing home the Maglia Rosa. And my teammates were fantastic. They were just doing a great job out there.
“We wanted to make the race hard, to eliminate some of the SD-Worx riders, and we did.”
Lidl-Trek was tactically sound all day, but in the end, bonifications and a potential sprint never mattered. Longo Borghini took the Maglia Rosa decisively, one day after Kopecky outsprinted her to the line and some questioned whether she would have the firepower to keep up with the Belgian rider on Sunday. She accelerated all the way to the line as Kopecky sat up in the final meters. She was greeted after the finish line by her husband, fellow Lidl-Trek rider Jacopo Mosca, who left home at 2:30 a.m. to be part of Longo Borghini’s moment.
Elisa celebrating with her husband and Lidl-Trek teammate Jacopo Mosca just after the end of Stage 8.
“This win is for my teammates, for the Lidl-Trek team, the entire team, the staff, everyone that is working night and day for us,” Longo Borghini said. “And then for my husband, because he’s always believing in me.”
Longo Borghini silenced the doubters with gusto. The pressure on her during the final stage — the tight margin, the questions, her history at the race — only motivated Longo Borghini even more.
“I like the thrill, I like the adrenaline when it’s about one second,” Longo Borghini said. “I like to have that head-to-head fight and to race until the end. When I see the finish line, I just see red like a bull and I just want to go straight to it. I was nervous today, in a very good way, and I was like I am going to crack you [Kopecky] no matter what.”
