Van der Breggen Detonates The Giro d'Italia Women On Nevegal, Crushing Vollering And Reusser By Over A Minute To Storm Into Pink
In one of the most emphatic single-stage statements the women's peloton has seen in years, Anna van der Breggen obliterated the field on the Stage 4 mountain time trial to Nevegal, stopping the clock in 31:38 over the 12.7km test and seizing the Giro d'Italia Women maglia rosa with a ride that bordered on the surreal. The SD Worx-Protime rider beat time trial world champion Marlen Reusser by 1:04 and pre-race favourite Demi Vollering by 1:10 on a brutal uphill drag out of Belluno.
That two of the strongest engines in the sport could be dismantled by such a margin over barely 13 kilometres reframes the entire race. Van der Breggen, who returned to racing this season after retiring at the end of 2021 and spending years in the SD Worx team car, has rediscovered the climbing-time-trialist form that once made her the most dominant stage racer in the world. On the steepest ramps of the Nevegal she simply rode away from the clock, and from the rest of the general classification.
Reusser, the reigning world champion against the watch, set an early benchmark that looked unbeatable until Van der Breggen's split times began arriving. Vollering, who came into the Giro as the bookmakers' favourite for the overall, will be quietly satisfied to have limited her losses to Reusser to just six seconds, but a 1:10 deficit to her own former teammate is a sobering opening to the high-mountain phase of this race.
The carnage behind the leaders underlined just how selective the stage was. Antonia Niedermaier of Canyon-SRAM produced a strong ride to slot into fourth on GC at 1:26, with Monica Trinca Colonel of Liv AlUla Jayco fifth at 1:31. Lauren Dickson and Femke de Vries rounded out the leading GC names, separated by a single second at 1:38 and 1:39 respectively, evidence that the fight for the minor podium places remains wide open even as the top step looks increasingly Van der Breggen's to lose.
The day's biggest casualty was the previous race leader. Elisa Balsamo, who had worn pink since Stage 1 and won three consecutive stages, was always going to surrender the jersey on a climb this severe, but the scale of her loss — more than nine minutes adrift of Van der Breggen — confirmed the transition from sprinters' race to mountain showdown is now complete. Balsamo's Lidl-Trek team will reset their ambitions around stage wins for the remainder of the week.
With the maglia rosa secured and a buffer of more than a minute over every genuine GC rival, Van der Breggen now holds the whip hand heading into a demanding back half of the race. The Alpine stages to Sestriere and the closing days in Piedmont will give Reusser and Vollering chances to claw back time, but they will need to attack a rider who has rarely been beaten in the mountains when wearing a leader's jersey. On this evidence, the 2026 Giro d'Italia Women has a runaway favourite — and it is the comeback queen of the peloton.