On the climb to Nevegal, Anna van der Breggen answered the question that had followed her since she left the peloton. She rode into the maglia rosa. The Dutch rider charged into first place at the Giro d'Italia Women on Tuesday, after winning stage four's time trial over a minute faster than world champion Marlen Reusser. At 35, in her second season back, she beat the best in the discipline by more than a minute.
The stage was built to punish. The 12.7km individual time trial came after three flat opening stages, and it kicked off flat before a climb averaging 8.2% opened up over 7.4 kilometres. At its steepest, the road pitched to 14% before flattening towards the line. For much of the afternoon it belonged to Reusser. She occupied the hot seat for the second half of the stage, taking hold of the time trial in 32:42 and deposing Urška Žigart in the process. None came close to toppling the world champion, though Monica Trinca Colonel slotted in 27 seconds behind, having set the fastest intermediate time at the foot of the climb.
Then came Van der Breggen. In the blue mountains jersey, she first bested Colonel's intermediate time, before tucking into her time trial position to mount the final climb and cross the line as the fastest rider. She stopped the clock at 31:38, 1:04 clear of Reusser, with Demi Vollering rounding out the podium 1:10 down. The rain arrived soon after. "Getting the maglia rosa is one challenge, then always wearing it is another difficult task, especially with more stages coming up," she said, before noting the weather to come.
The long road back
The result carries weight because of where it sits in her story. Van der Breggen took the pink jersey for the first time since winning the 2021 Giro overall. A hilly time trial in 2015 delivered her first Giro stage victory and a crucial part of her first Giro GC win. A mountain time trial five years ago was her last Giro stage win until now, cementing the lead on the way to her fourth Giro victory, when she beat her then-teammate Demi Vollering by 1:06. After a three-year stint behind the wheel of the SD Worx team car, she returned to the peloton.
The margin over Vollering told the same tale as five years earlier. She put 1:10 into her former teammate on the climb to Nevegal, suggesting she was back at her earlier level and among the favourites to win the 2026 Giro outright. The patience was deliberate.
"I think it's nice to show that the road to victory is not always immediate. It takes time to improve, and it was the same for me. If you believe in your goals, sometimes you need to be patient."
She has led this race before, won it before, walked away from it entirely. "For me, it feels like I've worked really hard these past two years to get to this point," she told reporters after the race. The clock, this time, agreed with her.
