Emma Pooley wins third Giro Rosa stage to seal mountains title

Lotto Belisol’s Emma Pooley yesterday took her third stage win of this year’s Giro Rosa, and with it sealed victory in the mountains classification in the nine-day Italian stage race, won by Rabobank-Liv’s Marianne Vos.

Pooley’s Stage 9 win yesterday came at one of the most famous sites in cycling, the Madonna del Ghisallo above Lake Como, after a solo attack.

She said that her team mates had done an “amazing job” to bring her back to the front of the peloton after a fast and frantic start to the stage, and that here victory “wouldn't have been possible without them."

Speaking of her attack on the final climb, she went on: “It was definitely not easy, and it was really painful but still it was fun. There were lots of people watching and cheering along the road.

“This was a perfect location for a mountain top finish at the end of the Giro Rosa. The Madonna del Ghisallo chapel has a special significance for cyclists."

Pooley, who also won the sixth and eighth stages of the race, added: "Taking this green [mountains] jersey is really great for the team, to be on that final podium. It's a big honour.

“I'm very pleased with that. I feel like we earned it after all the hard work. I had such great support of the team, they really believed in me."

It was world champion Vos’s third overall victory in the race in four years, having previously won it in 2011 and 2012.