Elisa Longo Borghini before final stage of Giro d’Italia Donne "The goal of our work must also be to provide excitement, fun, and real emotion"

Elisa Longo Borghini finished 3rd in the queen stage of Giro d’Italia Donne .She finished 1 minute and 14 seconds behind stage winner Kristen Faulkner.

"I think our duty as riders, as athletes, is also to put on a show,” said Longo Borghini. “The world comes from a difficult period with the pandemic, and there’s an ongoing war almost on our doorstep. The goal of our work must also be to provide excitement, fun, and real emotion. People follow us because of that. When I race, I try never to forget that," said Longo Borghini.

Longo Borghini's approach had been to ride at her own pace over the mountains, which had worked well for her. She adopted the same strategy on stage 9's critical climb, the steep Passo Daone. "Today's descent was new for me. I rode it on intuition, but the descent is pure fun for me. I got a few trajectories wrong due to fatigue after a hard week, but I always managed to correct and not take excessive risks," describes Longo Borghini.

In the end, Longo Borghini finished third on the stage for the second day in a row. She holds 4th position in GC, 6 minutes and 59 seconds behind overall leader Annemiek van Vleuten.