Neve Bradbury (Canyon//SRAM) took a commanding solo victory on the queen stage of the 2024 Giro d’Italia Women on the mountain top finish of stage seven.
Bradbury attacked the favourites group with nine kilometres to go and never looked like getting caught by the chasers. Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) sprinted to second place 44 seconds down with Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek) just behind in third.
With bonus seconds factored in, the world champion shaved two seconds off Longo Borghini’s lead in the battle for the pink jersey, meaning that the Italian now leads the race by just one second ahead of the final stage. Having been more than two minutes off the lead at the start of the day, Bradbury climbed all the way up to the podium after her win.
The young Australian, who secured her second career victory, needed to push hard to keep Kopecky and Longo Borghini at bay.
“I’m really cooked to be honest,” she told Eurosport after the finish when asked how she felt. “It was full gas. I had to go so deep, so far into the red zone. I don’t think I’ve pushed so hard in my life.”
“I wasn’t really looking at my power in the end. I was just trying to go full gas. I wasn’t really thinking about anything apart from each pedal stroke.”
The focus for team Canyon//SRAM at the start of the day was all on the stage win, but Bradbury admitted that she now has ambition for more.
“At first I was just thinking about this stage win and then at one point I was like, actually maybe we can go be on the podium with me, if not have Antonia [Niedermeier] in third,” she said.
“We’ll fight for whatever we can and hope for the pink jersey,” she said looking ahead to the final stage on Sunday.
More to come