LINE-UP
Lucy Garner (GBR)
Claudia Lichtenberg (GER)
Willeke Knol (NED)
Sara Mustonen (SWE)
Amy Pieters (NED)
Maaike Polspoel (BEL)
Julia Soek (NED)
Marijn De Vries (NED)
COACH
Hans Timmermans (NED)
While the Tour de France takes centre stage in the WorldTour, the women also have one of the largest races of the season this week – the Giro d’Italia Femminile.
Team Giant-Shimano Women’s Team come into the race with a strong overall line-up capable of challenging for both stage success and a strong result overall, and the line-up includes a previous winner of the race in Claudia Lichtenberg (GER).
Lichtenberg [previously Häusler – recently married] won the race back in 2009, taking an emphatic stage win along the way and she will provide the team with vital knowledge on what it takes to win here.
Racing alongside her will be an experienced team who come to the race off the back of strong showings at their respective national championships. Amy Pieters (NED) finished fifth in the Dutch championships while Sara Mustonen (SWE) took third in Sweden.
The race gets underway with a short two kilometre prologue which Team Giant-Shimano coach Hans Timmermans (NED) describes as being ‚full throttle, flat and with just one corner‘.
Timmermans said looking ahead to the race: „The main goal here is to race in an attractive way and make sure that we try to always be present in the dangerous breakaways and to support Claudia as much as possible.
„Last year she finished third and has won before, and she has shown recently that she is in good condition by taking fifth at the Emakumeen Bira.
„We also have Lucy and Amy here who can perform well in the sprints. The rest of the women are also in good shape and I think that we can go for a good result everyday and challenge well here in Italy.“