Tour Down Under debutants Elisa Longo Borghini, Lotta Lepisto, Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio have recipe for success

An Italian, a Finn and a South African all believe the eighth edition of the Santos Women’s Tour Down Under will be the most exciting yet as they converge on Adelaide to race in Australia for the first time in their brilliant careers.

Elisa Longo Borghini, Lotta Lepisto, and Ashleigh Moolman Pasio gear up for their first Tour Down Under at Montefiore Hill. Picture Dean Martin

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An Italian, a Finn and a South African all believe the eighth edition of the women’s Santos Tour Down Under is the most exciting yet as they converge on Adelaide to race in Australia for the first time in their brilliant careers.

Italy’s 2016 Rio Games individual road race bronze medallist Elisa Longo Borghini has been given an insider brief of what to expect from her maiden voyage to the Tour Down Under from her older brother Paolo Longo Borghini.

He raced at the Tour Down Under in 2007 before retiring in 2014, finishing eighth in the general classification riding for Barloworld alongside Welshman Geraint Thomas, the 2018 Tour de France winner.

Elisa Longo Borghini, Lotta Lepisto, and Ashleigh Moolman Pasio gear up for their first Tour Down Under at Montefiore Hill. Picture Dean Martin

Longo Borghini, 27, lives in one of the most beautiful parts of Italy near the Lago Maggiore district where her partner, Dr Ciro Valentino Di Mauro, is an orthodontist at Arona.

Her mother Guidina Dal Sasso was a world champion in cross-country skiing.

“I’m a bit scared of the heat but I think it will be amazing. We arrived on Sunday, I’m a bit jet lagged,’’ Longo Borghini said.

“I’m not used to racing in January because normally I’m fully in my preparation during the winter.

“Right now where I live I was used to training in minus 1C or minus 2C, it’s a big jump of temperatures and this will be a good hit out.”

The Italian triple time-trial champion and road champion said her goal would be to try to help her Trek-Segafredo teammates.

“I’m not in shape at all right now but if I see a good opportunity I surely will take it here.

“I think we have some other riders in the team that can achieve something but I think Lotta (Lepisto) is pretty fast and I’m in the shape where I can really help the sprinters.

“Catching the breaks and try and pull the sprint for the others and covering attacks.”

Lepisto, a seven-time Finnish national road champion, 29, and five-time time trial and CCC-Liv rival and South African national road champion Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio, 33, are also visiting the Tour Down Under for the first time.

Lepisto is somewhat glad to be missing Helsinki’s harsh January winter where the predicted forecast on the Tour Down Under’s stage 1 on Thursday is expected have a 35C difference — 29C in Adelaide and minus 6C in Finland.

The former swimmer and triathlete is expected to push women’s Tour Down Under favourite, reigning champion, Australia’s Amanda Spratt, 31, from Mitchelton-Scott if Trek-Segafredo make all the right tactical moves.

Lotta Lepisto , left, finishes behind Australia's Chloe Hosking in the third edition of La Course by Le Tour de France one day cycling race in 2016. Picture: AFP PHOTO / LIONEL BONAVENTURE

Lepisto is well prepared for this race.

“In the last years I have had a second home in Girona in Spain,’’ Lepisto said.

“We bought a flat and I have two homes now, one near Helsinki and in Girona.

“We had a training camp already and to race in January is a new experience.”

Despite the Trek-Segafredo threat Pretoria’s Moolman-Pasio is confident claiming she adores the heat.

Although her focus has changed this year she is still planning on winning South Africa’s national road title in February after a brilliant 2018.

Moolman-Pasio is currently eighth in the UCI women’s world rankings, six spots behind Tour Down Under favourite Spratt.

“I now have a property and business in Europe we run a cycling tourism business,’’ Moolman-Pasio said.

“It’s called Rocacorba cycling, it’s named after a famous climb in our area in Spain, we literally have a rural or masia and that’s situated at the Rocacorba climb, my family are back there running the business and I spent December at home with a winter Christmas.

“But I’m used to the heat here.”

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Originally published as Tour Down Under debutants Elisa Longo Borghini, Lotta Lepisto, Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio have recipe for success