| Girls from the mighty Team Bigla are really stamping their authority on the 17th Giro d'Italia Femminile. After Switzerland's Nicole Braendli started in style by scoring a great 1-2 in the opening legs, and captured the overall leader's jersey, which she's likely to keep all the way to the end of the event, her Kazakh (but former Russian) teammate Zulfia Zabirova got a prestigious solo win in Tuesday's stage four, the last leg running entirely on the Veneto region soil, going from Castelmassa to Ceneselli over 118.2 km., mostly along the shores of Italy's second biggest river, the Adige. What was supposed to be a calm stage (that consisted of a first lap of 62 km. followed by a "minor" one covering 56.2 km) leading into a bunch sprint turned out to be a hard-fought battle, with an eight-strong breakaway group starting the fireworks after 37 km., and containing future stage winner Zabirova as well as third-placed rider overall Zinaida Stahurskaya - launching her attack on Braendli for the second day running - New Zealand's Melissa Holt and ... the whole Vriend Van Het Platteland team: in a possibly unprecedented move, five athletes from the Dutch squad got into the"break of the day"! Such move could have posed a serious threat to Nicole Braendli's lead, so that - no matter if Zabirova was in the front group - her Team Bigla domestiques kept doing some serious chasing, with some help from Buitenport Flexpoint, Team PMB Fenixs and Nobili Rubinetterie, resulting in a major split in the main peloton (first), also due to the strong winds blowing in the area, and in the eight escapees being pulled back into the bunch at km. 55, while at the same time multiple Giro winner Fabiana Luperini was dropping out of the 2005 race. The next attack came around the end of the opening circuit, as Denmark's Lise Christensen (Team Bianchi-Aliverti), apparently having enough of staying inside the pack and sped her pace, slightly but steadily building a lead of about 30 http://www.dailypeloton.com/displayarticle.asp?pk=8246
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