In her last Giro Donne victory in 2019, Annemiek van Fruten, then with Mitchelton-Scott, won the first mountain stage solo, winning by about 3 minutes to take the Maria Rosa In 2020, she fought a similar battle, soloing the difficult second stage, but But she was injured in a crash on stage 7 and had to abandon the race. Returning to Italy last year after skipping the race to prepare for the Tokyo Olympics, the 39-year-old Movistar Team rider took on the Giro d'Donne as "attack is the best defense," and she was minutes ahead of most of her rivals. However, she could not finish alone. This time, Mavi Garcia (UAE Team ADQ) finished behind Van Vleuten, while Marta Cavalli (FDJ Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope) only made contact on the final climb of stage 4 before Cesena. The Passo Maniva summit finish on stage 7 was Van Vleuten's chance to gain time and further secure the maglia rosa. With a five-minute gap on the rest of the field, she focused only on putting time on Garcia and Cavalli, thus helping the GC contenders behind her reel them in.

Van Vleuten's first attack with about 3.5 km to go blew away the pack of contenders, but once she saw Garcia and Cavalli on her wheel, the Dutchwoman hesitated to continue at full speed. However, once she saw Garcia and Cavalli on her wheel, the Dutchwoman did not want to continue at full speed, as the 39-year-old easily kept up with Cavalli and Garcia in the second half of the climb, and even attacked herself to briefly pull away from her two rivals. However, the Spanish champion returned to Van Fruten's wheel with Cavalli in tow, and the momentum was gone. This allowed fourth-place finisher Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo), who had set her own pace on the climb, to return to the pack, and Juliette Labusse (Team DSM) took the stage win from the breakaway group. White jersey Niamh Fischer-Black (Team SD Works) and Italian climber Gaia Leirini (Isolman-Premac-Vittoria) also returned. Fischer-Black, who was eighth overall before the stage, controlled the pace and increased his time gap to move up in the overall standings, dropping Learini from the pack again. The New Zealander had to pay the price for Van Vleuten's retreat as he headed for the finish line, but Fischer-Black was on target and was joined by Cecilie Uttrup-Ludwig (FDJ Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope) ), Amanda Spratt (Team Bike Exchange-Jayco), and Silvia Persico (Valcar Travel & Service) to move into fifth place.

"I paid attention to my pacing. I'm still not confident on the long climbs, and I have two more hard days ahead of me," Fischer-Black said of the final climb.

"So I couldn't keep up with the attacks, but I kept my effort up. I wanted to secure as many top-five places as I could today." Including time bonuses, Van Vleuten was six seconds ahead of Garcia and 16 seconds ahead of Cavalli, but her race seemed more calculated than in previous years. The reason for this approach was the first race of the Tour de France Famous Avec Swift, which begins two weeks after the Giro Donne is over. Van Vleuten is one of the few riders trying to be competitive in both races and will not want to be too worn out in Italy before her once-in-a-lifetime chance to win the women's Tour de France.