Rosa Round-up: Essential Giro Rosa prologue coverage
The Giro Rosa begins today (YAY!) with a two-kilometre prologue in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Karol Ann Canual (Velocio-SRAM) will kick off the ten-day Italian Grand Tour at 7 p.m.
We have a full schedule of Giro Rosa cover planned for you, including a daily round-up of the best content we’ve seen out of each stage; however, given that the prologue is at night –and there’s so much great pre-race chatter, we thought we’d do today’s round-up before the stage star. (And who knows? -maybe we’ll do a post-stage round-up, too).
(Can you tell we’re super excited to get this show on the road?)
All about the opening Prologue:
Velofocus has done a fantastic stage-by-stage preview for each of the ten stages of the prologue. He discusses the two-kilometre opener here.
Karol Ann Canual (Velocio-SRAM) is the first rider to race tonight, and Lucinda Brand (Rabo Liv) is the last. Canual will leave the start house at 7 p.m. Not quite two hours later, at 8:51 p.m., Brand will be the last to roll out. Find a complete list of starters and times here.
The prologue will be streamed live on RAISport2 beginning at 7:30 p.m. (that’s 3:30 a.m. AEST). You can tune in here. Have those VPNs fired-up as this one is geo-restricted. UPDATED: The most recent information we’ve seen suggests that perhaps the prologue will not be streamed live after all – and will instead be shown at 10:30 p.m. (6:30 a.m. AEST). If there is a live stream, it will be at the link above, and we’ll make sure to share that on Twitter. Same goes for highlights as opposed to live stream. Stay tuned!
Keep in mind: Annemiek van Vleuten (Bigla) won the last prologue on the calendar –the opening stage of the Euskal Emakumeen Bira. She’ll start tonight’s stage as a favourite. Giro Rosa overall contender Anna van der Breggen (Rabo Liv) won the EnergieWacht Tour prologue back in April and could contend for the top step of the podium tonight.
Giro Rosa Presentation:
The Giro Rosa presentation was live streamed last night. If you missed it, you can watch the archived video here. This was our first opportunity to see a lot of new national champion kits. We particularly liked the Spanish National Road Champion kit Wiggle Honda made for Anna Sanchis.
Looking for images out of the team presentation? Cor Vos has you covered.
Read-up on Ella
Before you tune into the prologue, make sure you’ve read:
- The Ella Giro Rosa guide.
- A Q&A with two-time winner Mara Abbott
- Loren Rowney’s Giro Rosa ‘stay sane’ packing tips
- This feature on Carmen Small about her move to Bigla and riding her fourth Giro Rosa with her new team
Beyond Ella
Beyond Ella, there’s plenty of Giro Rosa reading and viewing:
- Kasia Niewadoma shares her stage win ambitions in this CyclingNews feature
- VeloNews reviews the course and tips Mara Abbott (Wiggle Honda) and Pauline Ferrand-Prevot (Rabo Liv) as their pre-race favoruites
- We love this pre-race video interview with Ashleigh Moolman (Bigla)
- Lotto Soudal Ladies speak with Elena Cecchini before her first Giro Rosa start
Tweets and ‘grams:
These are some of our favourite social media posts since the Giro Rosa presentation last night. We’re also (obviously) digging the #TiffTakeover over on Ella Instagram.
Nobody says hello quite like @tiffanycromwell #GiroRosa2015 #TeamPresentation pic.twitter.com/1LA0iJuEmL
— cyclephotos (@cyclephotos) July 2, 2015
Listened to my new playlist doing pre start & had a coffee (don't have coffee often)..I think I've peaked FAR to early.. #PUMPED #9hourstogo
— Macey Stewart (@macey_stewart) July 3, 2015
Out riding with this group of champs in Slovenia this morning! @WiggleHonda are excited to take on the #GiroRosa2015 pic.twitter.com/3UK5r4HvAN
— Emilia Fahlin (@EmiliaFahlin) July 3, 2015
Going to be a 'fun' 10 days with these cool cats ? @LS_Ladies @GiroRosaCycling #weareready #liveyourdream #GiroRosa pic.twitter.com/SDXAA0VKPU
— Carlee Taylor (@carleetaylor1) July 2, 2015
#GiroRosa2015: Before they get underway tomorrow, read up on the ORICA-AIS team. 4 debutants! http://t.co/n8kx4je1hv pic.twitter.com/ljrQM0JfRE
— ORICA-GreenEDGE (@ORICA_GreenEDGE) July 2, 2015
Good luck to these champs, at the #GiroRosa! #idols pic.twitter.com/W6NvTaqN8v
— Julie Leth (@JulieLeth8) July 3, 2015
Morningride done with @bigla_cycling teamies. Ready for start 2km prologue incl 2×180 turns @GiroRosaCycling at 20.24 pic.twitter.com/8Sytrajb9L
— Annemiek van Vleuten (@AvVleuten) July 3, 2015
Expect in-depth, varied coverage of each and every Giro Rosa stage on Ella CyclingTips. We will have daily race reports within an hour of each stage finish, full results, daily diaries from Australians Tiffany Cromwell (Velocio-SRAM) and Lizzie Williams (Orica-AIS) and (Aussie) morning round-up of our favourite links, videos, photos and social media posts from each day’s stage. Also check out Ella on Instagram for our #TiffTakeover.
Like what you see here? Wish we were doing more Giro Rosa coverage? Less Giro Rosa coverage? Doing something different altogether? We want to hear from you. Consider taking our Ella survey to let us know what we’re getting right, where we could improve and who you are. All survey participants who share their email address are entered into our random draw for a Velocio kit.
