Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio won the final stage and overall of Giro della Toscana on Sunday. The move was a repeat of 2016 where the South African achieved the same feat. In a perfectly executed tactic, Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig was second on the stage and overall classification.
Lisa Klein escaped 12 kilometres into the stage and was joined by another rider. With Klein high up in the overall classification, the onus was on race leaders Ale Cipollini to control the move.
Klein was eventually brought back after 80 kilometres and Uttrup Ludwig used the opportunity to attack, enforcing more pressure. In her race report below, Moolman-Pasio explains how the day worked out.
Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio race report
Today was perfect. In general, the tour was a great experience for the team. We started off the prologue really strongly but then yesterday we made some mistakes which were quite hard to digest as a team. Today we were very motivated to fix all the mistakes and everything was just perfect. We executed the tactic 100%.
Lisa did an incredible job by going into the breakaway early into the stage. The move put Ale under pressure and it opened up options for us as they had to chase. When Lisa came back, Cille attacked and they had to work again. When I sensed the time was right and they were under a lot of pressure on the steeper parts of the climb, I attacked and joined Cille. One rider came with me and Cillie and I had a team time trial to the finish. We didn’t want to give the Polish rider a free ride to the finish so I attacked on the last climb.
We’re very happy, this is perfect preparation before the world champs. We learnt a lot of lessons during this tour.
It’s always great to win in Italy. I love racing here, it’s a beautiful country and the racing is always hard here because of the terrain. I’ve lived here before and to win on home soil for our partners Kask, KOO and Vittoria makes it special. It’s great to give them something extra by winning at home.
