Marianne Vos quits Giro Donne to focus on Tour de France Femmes

Marianne Vos has quite the Giro Donne to focus on recovery before starting the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift on July 24. 

Two stage wins at the Giro this year takes the 35-year-old's overall tally to 32, further extending her record for the most stage victories in the history at the race. Vos won the second and fifth stages in convincing fashion in Italy, outsprinting her opponents both times to cross the line first. 

She also secured two more podium finishes, on stage one and four, respectively. 

But then did not start stage six of the Italian race.

Vos revealed she has already switched her attentions to the next challenge in the calendar \at the Tour de France Femmes, as announced by her Jumbo-Visma team on Twitter.

"I'm happy with my two wins," she said. "I'm going to recharge now and focus on the next team goals."

Despite having won the Italian race three times overall, Vos exited after the fifth stage 10-51 behind GC leader and compatriot Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar). 

With the Giro Donne a late addition to Vos' schedule, it makes sense for her to withdraw from the race early, especially when considering July 24 signals the first edition of the Tour de France Femmes. 

The Dutch rider has already made her intentions to compete in the inaugural race clear. Later this month she will look to write her name into the history books across the eight days.

She has experience of winning at the unofficial Tour de France for women, too, with her Grande Boucle Féminine Internationale 2009 victory. Her palmarès also includes two wins of La Course by Tour de France in 2014 and 2019.

Vos has spent some time gradually recovering from Covid-19 the past few months. She couldn't start Paris-Roubaix Femmes, and has only raced in the Veenendaal Classic and Dutch road championships since April. 

“I didn't get very sick so I thought I would get rid of it quickly, but [getting Covid] did have more impact than I had hoped,” the three-time road world champion told Cycling Weekly in May. 

“At the time when I had to withdraw from Roubaix, I had no symptoms yet. I then did develop some symptoms but I wasn’t that sick — throat soreness and a persistent cold mostly. But it lingered. The moment I picked up the bike again, I noticed that when it came to endurance especially, it really had an impact. So I’ve had to patiently start training everything back up again, which we as athletes aren’t always very good at.”