The Colle delle Finestre Awaits: The Giro d'Italia Women Queen Stage To Sestriere Will Decide The Maglia Rosa
The 2026 Giro d'Italia Women reaches its defining day on Saturday, with a short but brutal queen stage from Rivoli to Sestriere. Across just 105km the riders will climb roughly 2,800 metres, the centrepiece being the legendary Colle delle Finestre, a partly gravelled monster that has written some of the most dramatic chapters in recent Grand Tour history before the road tips up again to the Alpine ski resort finish.
At the top of the standings, Anna van der Breggen carries the maglia rosa into the mountains with a healthy buffer, having seized control with a commanding win in the Nevegal time trial earlier in the week. But the SD Worx-Protime leader arrives bruised, having been brought down in a mass crash on stage 7, and the Finestre is precisely the kind of terrain on which a deficit can be overturned in a matter of kilometres.
Her most aggressive challenger has been Elisa Longo Borghini, who attacked into the breakaway on stage 7 in an attempt to claw back GC time and signalled she will not let the race drift to Sestriere without a fight. The Italian champion of UAE Team ADQ will be expected to send her team up the road early to set up a long-range assault on the Finestre's gravel slopes.
Demi Vollering remains the other obvious danger. The FDJ United-SUEZ leader already has a queen-stage win to her name this Giro after her victory in Santo Stefano di Cadore, and on her day she is capable of riding clear of any rival in the high mountains. With FDJ also celebrating Celia Gery's stage 7 win, the French team has the strength in depth to make the race brutally hard from distance.
The Colle delle Finestre's mix of tarmac and gravel rewards bike handling and nerve as much as raw climbing power, and its unrelenting gradients leave nowhere to hide. Riders who misjudge their effort on the lower slopes can lose minutes before the summit, while a perfectly timed attack can transform the overall classification entirely. Expect the favourites to mark one another warily until the gravel begins to bite.
With a summit finish at Sestriere expected in the late afternoon and only an uphill time trial to follow in the closing stage, this is the last realistic chance for the climbers to dislodge van der Breggen. Whoever holds pink at the top of the Finestre and over the line in Sestriere will be in commanding position to win the 2026 Giro d'Italia Women.