Sarah Gigante set to star as Tour de France Femmes heads to the mountains

Australia Broadcast Center

6 days ago

The Tour de France Femmes is well and truly underway, with four of the race's nine stages already done and dusted.
Those flat stages were the preserve of the fast women: Marianne Vos. Lorena Wiebes. Kim Le Court Pienaar — sprinters and rouleurs having their fun before the real work begins in the mountains and hills of the east.
Now, as the race continues its migration across France, the roads begin to climb. The Massif Central looms and then, the Alps.
It is time for the mountain goats to flex their climbing muscles.
Australian Sarah Gigante has rightly been looking forward to the mountains.
The 24-year-old Victorian is fresh off finishing third overall and winning the mountains jersey at the Giro d'Italia Donne — only the second Aussie after Amanda Spratt in 2018 to win the maglia azzurra.
She won two stages in that race — the two most mountainous ones, at that.
In fact, had Gigante not been caught out on a crosswind-affected sixth stage and lost almost 2 minutes overall, she may well have been hailed as Australia's first women's grand tour champion.
What was all the more incredible was it came after Gigante spent six months out following major surgery.
"Last December, I had a major surgery, basically to unkink and remove some scar tissue from my iliac artery, which was really a big surgery," Gigante told ABC Sport.
The Victorian rider required the operation due to a thinning of the artery that transports blood down to her right leg, resulting in numbness and pain.
It is increasingly common in endurance athletes, particularly cyclists, due to the constant flexing of the hip.
"I've had quite a lot of operations in the past for broken bones but that's quite standard for cyclists, whereas this was more risky coming back from and took a long time," Gigante said.
"It was a super cool feeling just to be on the start line again [at the Giro] and racing against the world's best.
"To have a breakout week was just beyond all my dreams."
Gigante is not wrong about requiring a frequent flyer card for her local operating theatre.
As well as multiple broken bones, she had previously required treatment for myopericarditis, an enlargement of the lining of the heart, in 2021.
Gigante is already an incredibly high achiever. She graduated from the University of Melbourne with a double degree in geography and linguistics as a Chancellor's Scholar off the back of an incredible 99.95 ATAR score.
The year after, Gigante burst onto the road cycling scene by claiming the Australian road race title as an 18-year-old.
But, successful Giro aside, her primary focus at the Tour Gigante has been to help AG Insurance-Soudal team leader Kim le Court-Pienaar, to an impressive degree of success so far.
Le Court finished second on stage one and third in stage two, which was enough for the Mauritian to take the yellow jersey for a single day. She currently sits third overall, 12 seconds behind Dutch legend Vos.
So now, with the road starting to point upwards, is the former Australian national champion looking at her own goals?
"I don't think my goals have changed," Gigante said, prior to the race getting started.
"But I do feel that I have both more confidence and less pressure at the same time, which is a really nice feeling."
The first four stages have not been exactly flat, with an average elevation gain of 1,179 metres on each stage.
But Wednesday's fifth stage sees a leap to 1,843m elevation gain in 165.8km of racing on the road from Futuroscope to Guéret, the majority of which takes place in the final 60km.
From that point on, the road gets steeper and more mountainous, culminating with a colossal eighth stage on Saturday night, where the peloton will climb 3,600m in just 111.9km of racing, finishing on the legendary Col de la Madeleine.
There is then another 3,000m climbing day on Sunday featuring the Col de Joux Plane and Col du Corbier before an uphill finish to Châtel les Portes du Soleil on the Swiss border.
"It's a back-ended course design," Gigante said.
"The week starts with five rolling and punchy, shorter, sprintier stages, which suit Kim really well," Gigante said,
"They don't suit me well.
"I just have to try to get through and, if I can limit time loss on the general classification for myself as well, that will be a helpful bonus coming into the hillier and harder stages.
"If I am still up there in the overall classification, I think we will have two cards to play."
Job done. Gigante sits in 19th place overall after the fourth stage, just 51 seconds behind race leader Marianne Vos.
More pressingly, she is just 29 seconds behind defending champion Katarzyna Niewiadoma and 26 seconds behind overall favourite Demi Vollering.
In other words, well within striking distance of the race lead.
And on roads well suited to the young Australian, who excels when the gradient gets steep enough for the air to be filled with the burning smell of clutches as support vehicles struggle to keep up.
"I like them more," Gigante said of the mountain stages.
"They're so challenging and when the going gets tough, the tough get going, that's what I like to think.
"When the bunch gets smaller and smaller and people are dropping off, everyone's legs are dying and you can hear the panting around you, that's when I really love it.
"You just learn to tune out … you're also embracing the pain, your legs are burning, your lungs are on fire, you're hopefully dropping others…
"It's a time when I can put the hurt on others. If I want to make it faster and that's my job, I can do it, which is a good feeling, being able to drop the other riders.
"But," Gigante adds, "they can drop me and smash me on the sprintier stages".
No Aussie has won the Tour de France Femmes in its short three-year history, with Elizabeth Hepple's third place in the 1989 Tour de France Féminin the nation's only podium finisher in a Tour de France-affiliated stage race.
In that 1984–1993 race, no Aussie won a stage, either, although in the Grande Boucle Féminine Internationale, a race unaffiliated with the Tour de France held between 1994 and 2009, Emma Rickards (2), Lynn Nixon (1), Juanita Feldhahn (1) and Anna Millward (1) all recorded stage wins.
Additionally, Chloe Hosking won the 2016 edition of the one-day race La Course by Le Tour de France.
Neither has an Aussie walked away with the famed polka dot jersey for the best climber at the Tour, but it is entirely possible that Gigante could break that jersey duck.
The Tour de France Femmes is considered one of women's cycling's grand tours, but in truth the one-week stage race bears little resemblance to the three weeks of torment the riders go through in the three men's grand tours.
Those three races, the Tour de France, Vuelta a España and Giro d'Italia, are the only stage races that last longer than a week on the men's tour.
The Women's equivalents, although growing, are still just a week long, similar to other stage races such as the Tour Down Under.
That is not from a lack of want, though, with Gigante keen for a longer race for the women.
"For sure," Gigante said when asked if she wanted the race to be longer than just a week.
"I'd like longer stages, hillier stages, more stages … The harder the better.
"This is my second Tour de France, I raced last year [finishing seventh overall], and it's one day longer [this year].
"Especially, the diesel engine that I am, I think a longer tour would suit me better.
"But also I think it's what the fans are wanting.
"Last year was so exciting, there was only 4 seconds separating first and second overall at the end of the eight days. I don't expect it to be as close this year. But I do think it will be a really fierce battle.
"Even with the Giro, it wasn't really televised in Australia, but the mount of media and the number of people messaging me or commenting on Instagram was insane, and that's the Giro, not the Tour.
"I think the fanbase is really increasing for women's cycling. The riders are ready for it."