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With courage and tenacity Erica Magnaldi took an amazing third place in the sixth stage of the Giro d'Italia Women.

With courage and tenacity Erica Magnaldi took an amazing third place in the sixth stage of the Giro d'Italia Women, 159 km from San Benedetto del Tronto to Chieti.

Entering the breakaway with three other riders with 39 km to go, she gave everything to collect this important result. With her on the attack, on another torrid day, were German Liane Lippert (Movistar Team), American Ruth Edwards (Human Powered Health) and Spanish Ane Santesteban (Laboral Kutxa - Fundación Euskadi). They were able to gain an advantage of over three minutes on the pink jersey group in which Silvia Persico and Dominika Wlodarczyk were also in.

On the final climb to the finish in Chieti, Santesteban lost contact and three remained to lead the race. Magnaldi spent the most time of all setting the pace on the climb, and in the final five kilometres she did all the work to prevent the group from coming back behind them when red jersey Lotte Kopecky and pink jersey Elisa Longo Borghini also moved up.

Thanks mainly to the work of the Italian rider, the three escapees reached the finish line and competed for victory in the sprint. The winner was Liane Lippert, ahead of Ruth Edwards and third was Erica Magnaldi, who confirmed her excellent shape.

Erica Magnaldi said: “I was definitely hoping for victory, but I have to say that this podium place means a lot to me. After seven years here I finally got my first podium at the Giro d'Italia and I am happy. It was a really tough day and my teammates did a fantastic job, especially in the first part of the race. I wanted to give something back to them, I definitely would have preferred a win, but this podium is still something beautiful and important for me and for all of us. We now have two more stages to try and do something good again”.

Tomorrow the seventh and penultimate stage, the most difficult, from Lanciano to Blockhaus of 120 km with the final double climb.

(ph. Sprint Cycling Agency)