Antonia Niedermaier takes Stage 5 win as Annemiek van Vleuten and Elisa Longo Borghini both crash on descent

Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon//SRAM Racing) held off a late push from world champion Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) to take the queen stage on the 2023 Giro Donne. Despite coming off the road while chasing on the final descent, Van Vleuten was able to get back on her bike and continue the chase.

Ad In the final corners the maglia rosa had her quarry in her sights but the talented young German dug deep to take the first Women's WorldTour victory of her career. Giro d'Italia DonneWatch the moment that both Van Vleuten and Longo Borghini crashed at Giro Donne4 HOURS AGO Within moments of Van Vleuten's incident, second place Elisa Longo Borghini suffered a dramatic fall of her own, locking up her wheels and crashing into an earth bank while taking a tight corner at speed.

Although still able to get riding again, the Italia champion was battered and bloodied, she lost her podium placing, rolling in more than 7 minutes behind the leaders. Van Vleuten began the day with a 49 second advantage over Elisa Longo Borghini, but was in no mood to simply defend her position at the top of the general classification.

According to her plan, the 40 year old set off on the attack at the foot of the Passo del Lupo. The aim, she would say later, was to get ahead of the others in order to be safe on the descent.

Gaia Realini (Lidl-Trek) was the only rider able to stay with Van Vleuten, as the Dutch rider sailed towards the Cima Coppi and the maximum 13 mountains points, which took her to the top of the mountains classification as well. Behind the pair, on the mountain road which averaged 8.6% for just less than 10km, the peloton quickly fractured, as those that could climb strongly said goodbye to those for whom it was not their specialty.