We’re dragging listeners back to Italy as The Cycling Podcast Féminin tackles the Giro d’Italia Women, which was won in spectacular fashion by Elisa Longo Borghini. Rose Manley is joined by Denny Gray and special guest ex-Olympian Joanna Rowsell to pull out all the biggest headlines from the race.

For our mini feature, we use the anticipated return of Anna van der Breggen to the women’s peloton as a springboard to find out what it takes to retire from racing and come back. Rose speaks to Ruth Edwards née Winder who retired in the same year as Van der Breggen only to return this season in flying form, already claiming a title in Thüringen and two podium finishes at the Giro.

Edwards’ breakthrough wasn’t the only story of the race as the second Grand Tour of the women’s calendar proved to be every bit as thrilling and hard-fought as it had promised. We witnessed the birth of a new rivalry between eventual winner Elisa Longo Borghini and all-round superstar Lotte Kopecky who trailed the Italian by only one second going into the final day. There was plenty of interest elsewhere as well with seven different teams sharing the stage victories at the race and the emergence of some new names to the roll of honour.

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The Cycling Podcast was founded in 2013 by Richard Moore, Daniel Friebe and Lionel Birnie.