The Power of Anger and Ignorance: Longo Borghini Goes Fourth

Elisa Longo Borghini has had a lot of reasons to be pissed off during this Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.

She hit back at journalists and media speculation about Paula Blasi’s role and any insinuations of tensions within Team UAE L’IMAD.

The Italian all-rounder suffered a mechanical problem with two kilometers to go in the stage 4 TT when on a flying day. After a bike change, she still only finishing 1:02 down on winner and race leader Reusser.

She was frustrated to lose time on the all-action following stage through Beaujolais. But after making the break, she is up to fourth and fighting for more.

Italian champion ‘tired of being pissed’

Having it into the decisive escape on stage 6 Thursday and stolen back 26 seconds on GC rivals, she had something to be happy about.

Given the frustrations, a few bike racers sitting on while she did the lion’s share of the work to bring back late attacks by Kim Le Court-Pienaar (AG Insurance-Soudal) and Riejanne Markus (Lidl-Trek), was not going to bother her.

“It’s bike racing, I don’t care, I don’t pay attention to this anymore,” she told Velo minutes after the race.

“I was pissed for the TT, I was pissed yesterday. I’m tired of being pissed, in the end.”

Asked if she was chasing GC or going for the stage win, she said, in all earnestness: “I was just riding by ignorance.”

Although her efforts to power the group along contributed to finishing seventh as Kim Le Court-Pienaar won, Longo Borghini moved two places to fourth on Tour de France Femmes GC, 2:28 down on Reusser before the big Mont Ventoux day.

Maybe channelling the power of being pissed can be a positive thing.

“To carry anger with you, maybe you can get good results but then you don’t live well,” she said. “I’m just trying to live my Tour de France. It’s three years I’m not performing here and I just want to go to Nice and have fun.”

Born bike racer

Turning feelings into results on the bike is Longo Borghini in a nutshell.

“Elisa wears her heart on her sleeve and she rides by emotion,” her UAE L’IMAD sports director Cherie Pridham told Velo.

“She’s a born bike racer, she just wants to be at the front of the bike race.

“We saw today she was pretty much the only one that was willing to work in there and benefit from both GC and stage win. We gained some seconds today, but we always said all along the race finishes in Nice.”

Longo Borghini is up to fourth. But having burned a lot of matches up the road to keep the escape rolling, could that have an impact on Friday’s crucial finish on the “Giant of Provence”?

“I think we rode quite smart with Elisa’s energy. I think Mont Ventoux is going to decide, eh,” Pridham said.

Is Longo Borghini herself looking forward to Ventoux?

“Not really. It’s a tough race, no? But I will hang there until I can, then we go to Nice.”