Lorena Wiebes was disqualified<\/a> for a bike weight violation, just hours after crossing the line first.<\/p>\nItalian Balsamo then headed off Irish rider Lara Gillespie and compatriot Chaira Consonni at the end of Sunday’s 156km stage just outside Venice to keep the pink jersey.<\/p>\n
It was the same three riders at the top of the podium as on Saturday, with Balsamo peeling out for the win just 200m from the finish line.<\/p>\n
“I have been waiting for this win so much,” she said.<\/p>\n
“I’m just so happy. I want to say a big thank you to my team-mates because they did an amazing job the whole day. And then I just did a really good sprint. It was an amazing day.<\/p>\n
“I was just completely focused on the finish line and I pushed until the end because I knew that everyone could come from the back, they are so strong.”<\/p>\n
Lidl-Trek’s Balsamo leads Gillespie in the standings by eight seconds, with Consonni 12 seconds back and the main peloton 20 seconds adrift.<\/p>\n
The nine-stage race ends on 7 June.<\/p>\n
Giro d’Italia Women stage two results<\/p>\n
1. Elisa Balsamo (Ita\/Lidl-Trek) same time<\/p>\n
2. Lara Gillespie (Ire\/UAE Team ADQ)<\/p>\n
3. Chiara Consonni (Ita\/Canyon-Sram)<\/p>\n
4. Charlotte Kool (Ned\/Fenix-Premier Tech)<\/p>\n
5. Barbara Guarischi (Ita\/Team SD Worx-Protime)<\/p>\n
6. Arlenis Sierra (Cub\/Movistar)<\/p>\n
7. Maggie Coles-Lyster (Can\/Human Powered Health)<\/p>\n
8. Alessia Zambelli (Ita\/Top Girls Fassa Bortolo)<\/p>\n
9. Nienke Veenhoven (Ned\/Team Visma)<\/p>\n
10. Linda Zanetti (Sui\/Uno-X Mobility)<\/p>\n
General classification<\/p>\n
1. Elisa Balsamo (Ita\/Lidl-Trek) 7 hrs 15mins 51secs<\/p>\n
2. Lara Gillespie (Ire\/UAE Team ADQ) +8secs<\/p>\n
3. Chiara Consonni (Ita\/Canyon-Sram) +12secs<\/p>\n
4. Charlotte Kool (Ned\/Fenix-Premier Tech) +20 secs<\/p>\n
5. Linda Zanetti (Sui\/Uno-X Mobility) same time<\/p>\n
6. Georgia Baker (Aus\/Liv AlUla Jayco) <\/p>\n
7. Alessia Zambelli (Ita\/Top Girls Fassa Bortolo)<\/p>\n
8. Arlenis Sierra (Cub\/Movistar)<\/p>\n
9. Gladys Verhulst-Wild (Fra\/AG insurance-Soudal)<\/p>\n
10. Cristina Tonetti (Ita\/Laboral)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Overnight leader Elisa Balsamo strengthened her position at the top of the women’s Giro d’Italia standings by winning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":705995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-705994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=705994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}