4th International Women's Tour of Tuscany

Main Page September 16 - Stage 3 - Prato - Volterra 114.2 km By Tomas Nilsson A mountain stage saw former race leader Gabriella Pregnalato lose the overall lead to the Lithuanian Edita Pucinskaite of the Acca Dueo Lorena squad. Stage report from Karen Kurreck: Today was (I hope) the hardest climbing stage of the Tour. We had 2 category 1 climbs, 2 category 2s and then a category 1 hilltop finish. The climbs all came in the last 50km, one after another with plenty of uncategorized climbs in between. Most of them were in the 2-4km range. The finish climb was about 5 km. At least we had good weather again and as far as I know, there was not a single crash! Dream Team kept things together the whole first part of the race. This didn't mean people didn't try to get away, they just were not successful. The only unusual event was that the whole peleton was stopped to wait for a train for at least 5-10 minutes. Everyone took the oppurtunity to get water from their team cars and make a pee stop. I was feeling kind of sleepy the first half of the race - we had another early morning visit from the UCI vampires. When the climbs started, Dream team swarmed the front. Zulfia Zabirova was mostly the one driving the pace up. She just set a really hard tempo up every climb and more and more people dropped off the back. I just tried to stay close to Zabirova and her teammate Pregnalato who had the leaders jersey. I figured I couldn't go too far wrong if I stayed on their wheels. Pucinskaite, Luperini and Joanne Sammorriba (Alpha Lum, '99 Giro d'Italia winner) were the main QOM sprinters. After each sprint, Zabirova would pull Pregnalato across any small gap that formed. By the time we got to the 2nd to last climb, the group had shrunk to less than 20 riders, but I'm not sure where they all came off. The last QOM was about 10 km before the finish climb. It was labeled a cat 2, but to me it seemed the hardest one of all! It just went on forever, it seemed Finally, the road widened and you could see a straight shot to the top about 400-500m up. Sommarriba, Luzia Pezzelloto (SC Master) and Pucinskaite got a gap and Pucinskaite dropped the other 2 by the QOM. THis time she just kept going. We caught Pezzellotto and Sommarriba on the descent but Edita was gone for good. GAS had Vera Hohfeld, both Cappellotto sisters and Luperini and they tried to chase or attack and bridge up, but they couldn't do it. When we got to the finish climb, we could see Edita on the switchbacks and Sommarriba and the Cappellottos tried to attack many times but just never could close the gap. Luperini was there but didn't really do anything. I could hear her breaathing pretty hard - it was kind of a nice sound! We finished in the town of Volterra which is a big tourist town. We had a few tourist busses along the course stop and cheer for us. With 1km to go, the road flattened slightly and we had a group of 15 and Edita was still away. The finish was in the center of town in a cobbled plaza. We climbed the main road and then made a sharp right turn into the walled city center. I had very little left at this point, but I gambled all of it on the fact that the finish would be just 100m or so past the last corner. I attacked on the last little steep section of the main road climb and sprinted for the corner. I got there first and went through the opening in the wall. THen I saw a sign that that said 500m to go! The street was all cobbled and went straight up! OOPS!!! I tried to recover a bit, but it was too late. I quickly went from the front of the group to the back. Sigrid Corneo (SC Master) took the sprint for 2nd. Pregnalato got dropped on the final climb, so Pucinskaite took back the leader's jersey. These 2 have swapped it every day so far. Because of the uphill sprint, there were gaps and people (including me) lost a few seconds here and there). I was behind Valeria Capellotto and Jolanta Polikevechuite in the finish and they opened a gap I couldn't close. Stage 3, Prato - Volterra, 114.2 km, AVS 36.034 kmh 1 Edita Pucinskaite (Ltu) Acca Due O Lorena Lituania 3.13.09 2 Sigrid Corneo (Ita) S.C Master Molteni 0.37 3 Zulfia Zabirova (Ltu) Acca Due O Lorena Lituania 0.39 4 Barbara Heeb (Swi) Nurnberger-Emmi 0.42 5 Vera Hohlfeld (Ger) Gas Sport Team 6 Tatiana Stiaikina (Ukr) Ukraine Pink Byke 7 Anke Erlank (Rsf) Edil Savino 0.44 8 Rasa Polikeviciute (Ltu) 9 Lucia Pizzolotto (Ita) S.C Master Molteni 10 Fabiana Luperini (Ita) Gas Sport Team 0.45 24 Gabriella Pregnolato (Ita) Acca Due O Lorena Mista 2.49 GC after stage 3 1 Edita Pucinskaite (Ltu) Acca Due O Lorena Lituania 6.15.50 2 Tatiana Stiaikina (Ukr) Ukraine Pink Byke 1.02 3 Vera Hohlfeld (Ger) Gas Sport Team 1.05 4 Sigrid Corneo (Ita) S.C Master Molteni 1.07 5 Karen Kurreck (Usa) Edil Savino 1.11 6 Fabiana Luperini (Ita) Gas Sport Team 1.17 7 Barbara Heeb (Swi) Nurnberger-Emmi 1.22 8 Joane Sommariba (Spa) Alfa Lum 1.22 1.22 9 Lucia Pizzolotto (Ita) S.C Master Molteni 1.22 10 Roberta Bonanomi (Ita) Acca Due O Lorena Mista 1.24 Points competition Gabriella Pregnolato (Ita) Acca Due O Lorena Mista Mountains Lucia Pizzolotto (Ita) S.C Master Molteni Under 23 Stéphanie Reymond (Fra) Omt-Lorina Sprints Sara Felloni (Ita) Acca Due O Lorena Mista Foreign rider Tatiana Stiaikina (Ukr) Ukraine Pink Byke (No further details were supplied by the race organisers. Go to - Stage 4