Malou Eisen's 2nd place in Premondiale Giro Toscana Int. Femminile (UCI 2.2)

Welcome to The Debrief #4. After picking apart my own race in the Tour de la Guadeloupe, we're back to talking to a real pro cyclist. For this edition, I had a chat with Malou Eisen (VolkerWessels Cycling Team) who is currently in Girona to prepare for the last part of the season after competing in the Premondiale Giro Toscana Int. Femminile, a 4-day women's stage race in Tuscany. The race consists of a prologue and three road stages. Coming fresh out of the Tour de France Femmes only 2.5 weeks earlier, Malou got 2nd in GC after finishing top 5 in stage 2 and 3. What did Malou do to digest the Tour and what did it take to get her first GC podium?

We will dive into the race and look into the data of stage 3 specifically, which was the hardest day of the race. And for the fellow data nerds, we got the .fit file with all data included 🤓.

The Parcours
First a quick note on the parcours. As mentioned the Giro Toscana consists of three stages and a prologue. The prologue was only 2km and stage 1 was a flat sprint stage, not too interesting for GC yet. Stage 2 was more interesting for GC as it contained a 6km climb at 4.3% after a long flat run-in.

Most interesting though, is stage 3 which contained multiple climbs on two circuits. The first circuit is 18km long and is ridden 2.5 times, meaning it contains the Segromigno climb, 1.7km at 5.3% three times. After that, the race moves on to the second circuit, this one is 14km long, containing the climb from Montecatini Terme to Vico, 2.7km at 5.8%. This circuit is done 5 times, finishing at the foot of the climb in Montecatini after the last lap. A tough day!

A bit about Malou
Now, I like writing about races on the 'minor' calendar and about the riders that are not in the headlines every day. It adds great perspective on the level of cycling across the board and often there are great stories to be found in the smaller races and among riders who aren’t the world’s best (yet). Not saying Malou won't be among them soon. (And I would 100% write an article about Malou when she gets to that point, making me a bit of a hypocrite here). Anyway, the point is, there is a lot more to cycling than Pogacar and Vollering cleaning up world's major races. Apart from the fact that they are not very likely to share their race file with me 😉.

Malou rose from being soigneur/recreational amateur to compete with the best in pro-cycling within a few years' time (for those interested, Wielerflits published a nice article about her background just before the Tour here). And now, after finishing the TdFF, she has her first major GC result and two top-5 finishes in the individual stages.

No after-Tour dip
Before diving into the Giro Toscana, I was curious what Malou did to come out of the Tour so well and whether she came into this race as a team leader. The answers to both questions are atypical. Malou told me she came out of the Tour feeling rather fresh. She took only 4 rest days before picking up her regular training schedule again, working towards Giro Toscana. Part of the reason she was 'fresh' was that stomach issues came up after stage 5. These kept her from digging deep in the Tour. Plus, Malou mentioned that behind the big favorites that colored our television screens, the race wasn't raced that hard once the other riders got dropped.

Then, the answer to whether Malou was the race leader for the Giro Toscana was no. Her team did not come in with a very clear pre-race plan. As Malou mentioned: “the goal of the team was to get someone on the podium: it did not matter who.” This surprised me as VolkerWessels is certainly one of the stronger teams in this race, strong enough to take control with a clear plan. This lack of a dedicated leader also slightly backfired during the race as we will see.

The race
Before moving to stage 3, we need to add some context on what happened on stage 2. In stage 2, Swieringa took the win, leaving Malou just 15 seconds behind her in GC. A great ride by Malou looking at the result, but, as she mentioned herself, there was more to it. Coming over the top of the climb, Dixon (who would get a mechanical later) and Swieringa were only just ahead, and Malou was unsure whether she had to wait for her teammate behind her, who also had GC ambitions. However, it was not her teammate closing in, but Kingma who caught up with Malou first. Having the team goal of a podium in mind, Malou continued to ride with Kingma and got 2nd in stage 2. In hindsight, an expensive moment of hesitation, as she should have gone with Swieringa instead of being caught between chasing and waiting for her teammate. A dedicated leader strategy could have helped to make the right decision here.

Shifting focus to stage 3 of the race. Malou is sitting in 2nd place in GC, 15 seconds behind Swieringa and 12 seconds ahead of Kingma in 3rd. It is likely that we will see the same riders in front as it is a stage for the climbers again. However, the repetitive nature of climbs on the parcours does require a different type of effort and greater fatigue resistance.

As the race unfolds, the pace is not too hard on the first circuits. That changes on the lead-in to second-to-last ascent of the climb to Vico, where Fenix-Premier Tech and Liv AlUla set the pace. They catch up with the breakaway that includes Malou’s teammate Evelien Vijn. This is also the point where the pace on the climb gets seriously high and the selection of the front group is made. Looking into Malou’s data, she needs to push just over 6 W/kg for 7 minutes to make it into the group with the first seven riders.

On the final ascent, after doing 6.1 w/kg for the climb again (!) the group remains together and it is Berteau who attacks on the flat after the descent and Malou jumps on her wheel. Potentially, a great situation for Malou as this move could give her the 15-second lead to Swieringa to win the GC. Unfortunately, they do not get away and the group comes back together. Eventually, it is the same Berteau who wins the sprint and Malou takes 4th on stage 3, sealing 2nd spot in GC. Not an easy sprint, by the way, as it is basically a double effort, first the sprint out of the final corner and then sprinting again for the line, leaving Malou to do two 15 second 600W+ efforts.

Overall, a great performance by Malou, who explicitly mentions that maybe more would have been possible, especially looking at her choices in stage 2. Who knows what's to come next!