Annemiek van Fruten (Mitchelton-Scott), who won the second stage of the Giro Rosa and took the Maria Rosa, was 1:48 ahead of Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) with two stages remaining and 2 She was leading the race by 1:03. The world champion's third consecutive victory was all but assured until a crash at the end of stage 7 forced her to retire.

Van Vleuten returned to the Netherlands on Friday for surgery to treat a broken wrist.

Niewiadoma unexpectedly found himself in the spotlight on stage 8, when he inherited the overall lead by wearing a maglia rosa at the start line in Castelnuovo della Daunia.

However, she had to give it up to her former teammate Van der Breggen, who wore the maglia rosa for only one day and attacked on the steep climb to the finish with Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo). Van der Breggen was aiming for the overall win, while Longo Borghini was focused solely on the stage win in San Marco La Catra.

"I lost a lot of time on the second stage, so I decided to go for the stage. I tried many times this week to win, but it didn't work out." Lizzie [Degnan] led me on the last climb and Anna [van der Breggen] attacked me after a kilometer. I knew she was going for GC and I knew I had a chance to win the stage."

Longo Borghini continued to lead the last kilometer of the uphill climb, finishing ahead of Van der Breggen and finally taking his first individual overall win in his ninth Giro Rosa.

"It was a tough situation, especially in the last few months when all I could think about was my country. I wanted to give positive emotions to people here and this is my first win of the season. I am very happy," said a delighted Longo Borghini.

Van der Breggen now leads the overall standings by 1:10 over Niwiyadoma and 2:23 over Longo Borghini. Saturday will be the finale, Stage 9, in which the peloton will race 109.9 km on the challenging Motta Montecorvino circuit.

With the time he earned on stage 8, Longo Borghini is third on the overall podium, just two seconds behind Cecilie Uttrup-Ludwig (FDJ Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope), who leads in the mountains. She is also 28 seconds ahead of Mikayla Harvey (Ekip Paul Ca), the top under-23 rider in this year's race, making the battle for the overall podium a heated one.

The battle for the final podium is still close, but it will be difficult to close the gap as Van der Breggen has extended her lead for the overall win to over a minute. Nienadoma lost a lot of time on stage 8, but said he could do nothing more on Friday's 6km climb to San Marco La Catra.

"The steep climb at the end was crazy," he said. It felt like there was no end in sight, and the start was pretty fast, so it was tough from the start." Then Anna van der Breggen attacked. My body shut down and I couldn't keep up with her.

The loss of the pink jersey did not dampen Nienyadema's spirits. She admitted that she did not want to win the overall and continued to enjoy the race, but said she would aim higher in the future.

"I did my best and the team did their best," she said. It's the first Giro I've enjoyed right to the end. To be on the podium is like having already won this race. I didn't come here thinking I was going for Maria Rosa, and for some reason I wasn't confident in myself. Now that we are second, we want to come back here and try to win the next year."

At the end of stage 8, van der Breggen said that while Van Vleuten's crash on Thursday was unfortunate, the peloton still maintains a "fighting spirit" for the Maria Rossa.

"I was fighting before and now I'm fighting for the pink jersey again," van der Breggen said. 'I just hope those who were involved in yesterday's crash are safe. But today I could feel the fighting spirit back in the race.

If Van der Breggen wins the overall title at the end of stage 9 on Saturday, it will be her third overall win at the Giro Rosa, having also won the title in 2015 and 2017.

For full reports, results, news, features, and galleries from the 2020 Giro Rosa, visit Cycling News' dedicated women's page.