Sarah Gigante is on her way home. Not literally back to the sunny city of Melbourne, Australia that she hails from, but to her figurative, bike racing home. To the roads she was born to race on, high in the mountains. She has survived the opening seven stages of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, making through the narrow descents, winding roads with the frantic, nervous bunch as it traversed through the Massif Central, and now it is time for Gigante to shine. She has been dreaming of this chance.
“August the second is the day I've been waiting for ever since this course came out,” the AG Insurance-Soudal rider grinned as she warmed down on her turbo trainer under the sunny skies in Chambéry after stage seven. “Even before I knew if I was picked or not for the Tour, I was hoping I'd be there to race up the Col de la Madeleine.”
Gigante has already visited the fabled Madeleine to get a feel for the steep gradients that make up the 18km, hors-categorie climb. She hasn't got to the top yet (the second part of the road to the summit was closed when she went, so the 24-year-old descended back down and did the first section twice as she “didn’t want to skip training”), but Gigante still got the sense that this is the terrain she has long yearned for.
“I’ve done the same part of the Madeleine twice and can confirm it is very difficult. I've never raced up a climb that hard before. The longer, the harder, the steeper, the better, for me,” she continued.
The Australian rider has had to battle demons to get to this point in the Tour de France Femmes, still within a shot of winning the yellow jersey. Gigante is candid that technical descents are not her strength and that she dreads the chaos that comes with flat races, so part of her preparation for this Tour has been to improve on her weaknesses. It was all about limiting her losses in the first part of the race so she could produce the type of performances in the mountains that we saw at the Giro d’Italia Women just a few weeks ago when the AG Insurance rider won the two hardest stages, crossing the line solo in the clouds.
(Photo: Pauline Ballet/ASO)
“I don't know which stage I was most worried about. I was worried about all of them up to now. My teammate Justine [Ghekiere] saved my GC position once again today. She sacrificed a podium on the stage to wait for me and encourage me to close gaps on the descent. She was so strong and selfless,” Gigante reflected.
“She was saying ‘go on Sarah, don’t brake, don’t brake, come on. You’re doing so well, don’t brake’. I lost 11 seconds in the end, but without her it would have been minutes, so thanks to Justine.”
The collective strength of AG Soudal-Insurance has made for one of the most impressive team performances of this race so far. Kim Le Court still wears the yellow jersey for a third day and achieved a stage win in Guéret two days ago. Under the guidance of the team’s sports director, Jolien d’Hoore, every rider on AG Insurance has rode cohesively and selflessly to protect the GC interests of both Le Court and Gigante.
Their rivals, including the likes of FDJ-Suez and Visma-Lease a Bike, have failed to capitalise on the few moments where AG Insurance looked weak. They have not put Gigante under pressure on descents, and they did not ride hard enough to ensure Le Court would remain distanced from the front group when she dropped on the final climb of stage 7. Gigante believes they should have, because she has got big, big plans for the mountains.
“I think other teams have missed a couple of opportunities. They could have got rid of me yesterday. Maybe Kim today,” the Australian woman smiled.
“We'll see what happens, but from our point of view, hopefully they live to regret it.”
