While the men's 2026 Giro d'Italia is gradually coming to its conclusion this Sunday, ladies will move to the spotlight from this Saturday onwards. Fierce battles are expected over the next nine stages with the general classification battle set to culminate on the mythical Colle dell Finestre. Movistar Team is one of those who bring a rather intriguing squad led by Marlen Reusser and young starlet Cat Ferguson.
Naturally, the Briton doesn't aim for the highest peaks, but rather the bunch finishes where Ferguson proved to have a great potential in past weeks and months. Meeting up against the world's fastest woman, Lorena Wiebes, she won't have an easy job to reach a stage victory.
"The Giro is hard, but then there are a lot of opportunities for sprints. I will be trying to do my best on the sprint stages," she told Cycling Weekly ahead of the Grande Partenza.
Since last year's Grand Tour debut at Vuelta Femenina, Ferguson will look to use that experience to reach higher than a seventh place the coming week: "It’s not just a one-day race, it’s 10 days of carb-loading, and it’s very different to a junior stage race," she said. "If you don’t manage to get that pasta down you at dinner, then the next day you really feel it."
Utilize experience from Classics
And when it doesn't click in one of the completely flat stages, Ferguson may look to use her versatily to benefit on more undulating days. The 20-year-old has already proven to be not afraid of a little climbing when she won the Navarra Classic, or placed high in Flemish Classics.
"The Classics are just something else, and that’s what I’m continuing to learn," she said. "Even having more of a physical ability doesn’t mean that it’s going to go right. I think a lot of the Classics is just positioning, and that’s something I’ve still not cracked."
How about Tour?
With Vuelta and Giro participations ticked off, there'll be only the Tour de France Femmes remaining in Ferguson's racing CV. And that could change this summer as Ferguson is currently a part of Movistar's long list of possible nominations.
"It will be [dependent on] how I’m going around the Tour," she said. "If anything happens between now and then, if I’m injured or something, that’s why we have this long list. All the team on the long list will do altitude with the team, and then from then we get selected."
"I think it’s a good system. It makes us hungry, and it makes us more competitive in a healthy way, so we can be the best team and the fairest team that goes to the Tour," she concluded.
Ondrej ZhasilCycling Journalist
Ondřej Zhasil is a cycling journalist at CyclingUpToDate and has been part of the team since 2023. He is based in Ostrava, the third-largest city in the Czech Republic, and covers professional cycling across the main UCI competitions, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España. A key focus of his work is startlist analysis and pre-race coverage, where he examines team selections, rider line-ups, and tactical scenarios ahead of major events.
Alongside WorldTour coverage, Ondřej has developed specific expertise in junior cycling and in racing across East Asia, including competitions in China and Japan. He also maintains a broad working knowledge of other disciplines and levels, including cyclocross, while continuing to expand his understanding of mountain bike racing.
Ondřej holds a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Physics, which supports his analytical, data-driven approach to performance and race analysis. In his reporting, he regularly uses ProCyclingStats for results, statistics, and historical context. He places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles promptly when new, verified information becomes available.
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- You can clearly see the the posture change from slightly sitting to again out of the saddle while changing of gears in the video of the sprintabstractengineer08-11-2026
- He has already beaten Pogi twice in the TDF. the achievement is over. He cannot beat Pogi now and he only has a few years left at the top. Win Giro and compete in the TDF, maximise palmares.abstractengineer08-11-2026
- Just looked again at the photo. Yeah I stand by that. If MS had fallen over in Brands direction I don’t even think she would have hit her. You must be a UCI race commissioner. I’ll be sure to check my sock height should I ever see you on a ride. Looks like everyone else on here sees what I see.mij08-11-2026
- I said looking at the photo it doesn’t appear she deviated. Chill out, not stating my word is the final judgement. Just commenting that based on the photo I don’t see it. And BTW the Dutch coach even said she didn’t impede her.mij08-11-2026
- Blah Blah Blah !frieders308-11-2026
- MS said she was changing gears so that caused her slight deviation. Nothing was intentional.frieders308-11-2026
- How can you use a photo post incident to judge the incident itself (which is not hard to find if you’re prepared to invest the same amount of time in searching as writing that comment? It’s harsh but technically right even though this or worse is not always sanctioned in every race. The two things that went against MS (who unfortunately for her would still have won without making her mistake) are that it was not a bunch sprint where there could have been an overlooked incident or mitigating circumstances explaining a deviation. Everything was focused on just those 2, Schreiber was riding beautifully balanced which made her sudden deviation look unnatural stroke as if it could have been in some part intentional whilst she was slowly drifting ever closer towards the barrier to a point that would have reached obstruction level. In her defence, it might have been the realisation she was heading towards that that made her react suddenly and caused the deviation involuntarily. In any case, congratulations to her for the ride of her life, in people’s minds she will be credited for it.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- Good boy Obviously doesn’t need that much help dealing with pressure, as some have suggested. Wiser (and humbler) than many far further along their careers. About offering him the moon, recently someone came up with an explanation of the downfall of a football great (either referring to Maradona or Portuguese Ronaldo) saying it was kind of normal after coming back from the moon, except that others, including some who actually did go to the moon like Armstrong (Neil in case anyone is too switched off to realise) didn’t go through any of the same motions after coming back. A lot of how you deal with situations has less to do with the situation than with your character.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- I think that they're not really used to dealing with this type of incident in a cyclocross race, and the situation has been magnified because it was a race for a championship title. It's very unfortunate that the race had to be decided in this way.
santiagobenites07-11-2026 - Seriously why do they keep doing stupid things like this. Its one thing to relegate when the placings are minor, when the action is blatant. But when it is ambiguous, why dont they at least take advice from some higher up to avoid embarrassing themselves. This is similar to the Halland goal when his teammate was clearly offside and interfered in play and VAR gave them the goal. if you dont have evidence you cannot convict. Even for doping they have these rulesabstractengineer07-11-2026
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