Giro d'Italia Internazionale Femminile, Cat 2.9.1

Main Page Stage 4, Umbertide - Umbertide, 112.8 kms: 1. Zoulfja Zabirova (Rus) Acca Due O Lorena 2.54.33 2. Nada Cristofoli (Ita) Edilsavino 0.04 3. Sara Felloni (Ita) Acca Due O Lorena 0.04 4. Gulnara Ivanova (Rus) 0.04 5. Vera Hohlfeld (Ger) Gas Sport 0.04 6. Priska Doppmann (Swi) Gas Sport 0.04 7. Tatiana Stiajkina (Ukr) Selene Rama 0.04 8. Oksana Saprykina (Ukr) Primavera Oliviero 0.04 9. Natalya Kishchuk (Ukr) Fanini 0.04 10. Svetlana Boubnenkova (Rus) Alfa Lum Aurora 0.04 GC after Stage 4 1. Zita Urbonaite (Lit) Acca Due O Lorena 11.45.04 2. Priska Doppmann (Swi) Gas Sport Team 3. Luisiana Pegoraro (Ita) Edilsavino 4. Stahurkaya Zinaida (Ita) Acca Due O Lorena 0.48 5. Nada Cristofoli (Ita) Edilsavino 0.50 6. Sara Felloni (Ita) Acca Due O Lorena 0.50 7. Saprykina Oksana (Ukr) US Primavera 0.50 8. Vera Hohlfeld (Ger) Gas Sport Team 0.50 9. Ivanova Gulnara (Rus) Acca Due O Camice 0.50 10. Svetlana Boubnenkova (Rus) Team Alfa Lum William 0.50 Karen Kurreck Reports: Today was another scorcher. For me, the problem isn't so much racing in the heat - I'm getting used to that. I'm going through at least 6-8 bottles per stage. I need both my cages plus my pockets! The hard part is sleeping in it at night. Of course Italian hotels (at least the ones we stay at) don't have air conditiioning. There is just one window and so you don't get a cross breeze and the rooms get pretty stuffy. Today's course featured a loop we did 3 times that included a cat 3 climb and an intermediate sprint. Then we did another cat 2 climb only 10 km from the finish. There was a feed zone on the loop and our staff found an empty box of Viagra there! Someone must have had a date after the race! They took it back to the van for a joke. The price tag was still on - 83,000 Lira (about $50). It must have been an important date! Today's stage started on time for a change. My teammate, Nada Christophole took over the sprinter's jersey yesterday. There were 2 sprints today so I led her out for them. I was struggling all day, so it was good to have a goal! It was actually kind of hard because the field was big and the sprints were right before the climb. She won both the sprints and keeps the jersey. Going into the last climb before the finish, a group of 4 got away (the only break of the day), but I'm not exactly sure who they were. Dream Team was blocking. GAS and the Germans brought them back so the field was all together again at the bottom. The climbers wanted to drop the sprinters, so it got hard. The descent ended only 5km from the finish and Zulfia Zabirova (Dream Team) attacked and with the help of her team who swarmed at the front all day, she stayed away to win the stage by a few sec. Nada took the sprint for 2nd. After today's stage we had our longest transfer so far - about 2 1/2 hours. Up to this point, we haven't driven more than 1/2 an hour before or after a stage. Right now, we are in Tuscany and tomorrow is the main mountain stage - it goes up Monte Serra twice. This is the climb that I train on frequently.