World champion Lotte Kopecky entered the final eighth stage of the Giro d'Italia women's race with a simple but not easy goal: to close the gap to race leader Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek) to just one second. Her goal was to finish in the top three on the stage ahead of the race leader and earn bonus seconds to get to the top of the podium.

"I have nothing to lose, and I'm just going to give it my all today and go for the bonus [seconds] at the finish," Kopecky said at the start of stage 8 in Pescara.

But to achieve that goal, Kopecky and her SD Works Pro Time team will have to be ready for a very long but relatively shallow category 3 climb in the first 50km, followed by a 13.7km climb to Castel del Monte, averaging 4.7%, on the 109km stage 8 Throughout, all attacks had to be controlled.

Attacks were exchanged right from the start, with three riders breaking away before the intermediate sprint in Catignano. A group of four more riders broke away from the leaders and built a gap of more than 30 seconds, but were caught by a reduced peloton led by Niamh Fischer-Black (SD Works-Protime) on the climb up Castel del Monte in the first category.

While Kopecký himself had to contain some moves, the attack continued and a decisive break by the three riders began with 36km to go. With 36km to go, a three-man breakaway was set, with only Fischer-Black leading the chase of the 20-man peloton, a gap that grew to 1:20 on the descent of Aquasanta.

The breakaway was won by Kim Lecourt (AG Insurance Soudal), with Kopecký behind him, who moved to the front with 700m to go and tried to pull a second, but on the contrary Longo Borghini pulled away from Kopecký on the final steep climb.

"It wasn't very good. I am disappointed to lose to Elisa. I'm not disappointed to lose to Elisa. She is a very good rider and I respect her. But it was really hard to control the stage and everyone tried to go into the break.

"My teammates did everything they could and in the end Niamh gave 200%.

Kopecký, the first Belgian rider on the overall podium of the Giro, took the stage win, the points jersey, and second place overall.

After the stage, she could not hide her disappointment. If I was so close to winning the Giro, of course I would want to win. But overall, I think I should be proud of my team and myself."

"You have to look at the bigger picture. I came here to prepare for the Olympics and I think I'm in really good shape and that of course gives me confidence."

Kopecky will compete in the endurance track events as well as the time trial and road race at the 2024 Paris Olympics.