Antonia Niedermaier has mixed feelings about the memories of her previous starts in Italy. She won a stage on her debut in 2023, but crashed heavily the following day and had to retire. Last year, she finished sixth, an exclamation mark, finishing 2:41 minutes behind winner Elisa Longo Borghini. Back then, she wasn't quite able to keep up with the best on the long climb to the Blockhaus in Abbruzzo. The third appearance at the Tour of Italy follows a long-term career plan. "We want to try and give her the leading role for the Giro. We think it would be a good start for Antonia," team boss Ronny Lauke told TOUR at the beginning of the season. They initially decided against her debut at the Tour de France Femmes at the end of July. Firstly because, unlike the women's Tour, there is a stage with an individual time trial in Italy this year. The main reason, however, is that the Tour of France attracts more attention and media coverage, says Lauke. That creates pressure, which eats up time and energy. And of course Niedermaier would have to take a back seat in the team hierarchy to last year's winner Katarzyna Niewiadoma in the Tour, for the upcoming edition of which she is only scheduled as a substitute rider, and could probably only start as a noble helper to her team-mate. Before the start of the Giro, Niedermaier says: "It's certainly a special race for me. This year I can hope to be on the podium. We want to fight for the overall classification."
Start with your favourite discipline, the high mountains follow
This year, she could be in pole position in the race for overall victory on the very first stage. It starts with a 14.2 kilometre individual time trial with start and finish in Bergamo. It is the speciality discipline of the 22-year-old cyclist from Team Canyon-SRAM-zondacrypto, in which she is the reigning German champion, U23 world champion and last year finished fourth in the elite women's class at the World Championships. How far Niedermaier, who lives at Walchsee in Tyrol, will get with the best in the mountains will be shown above all in the probably decisive mountain stages with final climbs: in Pianezze (stage 4; Wednesday, 9 July) and on Monte Nerone (stage 7; Saturday, 12 July). Immediately before the start of the Giro, Lauke said: "Our goals are clear: we are aiming for stage wins and the overall classification." He doesn't say who will achieve these goals - and in doing so is probably deliberately dampening expectations and taking pressure off his talent. "We're going into the Giro with a strong, balanced team. We are combining the experience of Tiffany (Cromwell) and Cecilie (Uttrup Ludwig) with the climbing talents of our younger athletes such as Justyna (Czapla) and Antonia," he emphasises.
Strong competition in Italy
Her main opponents are likely to be last year's winner Elisa Longo Borghini from Italy and the Dutch Olympic champion from 2016, Anna van der Breggen. The latter could become the sole record winner in the history of the race after four overall victories in the past. In addition, world champion Lotte Kopecky (also SD Worx-Protime), Swiss rider Marlen Reusser (Movistar) and the two French riders Juliette Labous and Evita Muzic (both FDJ-SUEZ) will be strong circuit specialists at the start. The two Tour winners Katarzyna Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM-zondacrypto) and Demi Vollering (FDJ-SUEZ), who are concentrating on their preparations for the Tour de France Femmes starting on ?
No Olympic start in ski mountaineering
Your career as a Successful ski mountaineer (Here you can read about the joint ski tour with TOUR) has been put on ice for the time being. She missed out on qualifying for the 2026 Olympic Games in Milan - last winter she did not compete at the highest level in ski mountaineering. In any case, only sprint competitions are on the programme for the discipline's Olympic premiere, which do not particularly suit the Upper Bavarian, who lives in the Tyrolean mountains. Nevertheless, her cycling team says that Niedermaier will continue to combine cycling and ski mountaineering as competitive disciplines in the future.
Everything about the Giro route under this link.
Andreas Kublik
Editor
