Elisa Longo Borghini

Longo Borghini grew up in Ornavasso, in the Alpine north of Piedmont. Her mother, Guidina Dal Sasso, was an international cross-country skier, and her brother Paolo raced as a professional cyclist until 2014. She turned professional as a teenager with the Italian team Top Girls Fassa Bortolo, and at twenty took bronze in the elite road race at the 2012 World Championships in Valkenburg, behind Marianne Vos and Rachel Neylan.

She attacked before the Kruisberg with thirty kilometres left to win the Tour of Flanders in 2015, the first Italian winner of the women's race. Strade Bianche followed in 2017, taken in filthy weather by two seconds from Katarzyna Niewiadoma. At Paris-Roubaix Femmes in 2022 she went clear with twenty-five kilometres remaining and reached the velodrome alone.

Most of her one-day wins have looked like that: a move made early, on a course roughened by cobbles, gravel or bad weather, rather than a sprint saved for the line. Flanders in 2024 was the exception, won from a three-up sprint against Niewiadoma and Shirin van Anrooij.

She took bronze in the Rio road race in 2016, outsprinted from a four-rider group by Anna van der Breggen and Emma Johansson. In Tokyo she finished third again, behind Anna Kiesenhofer and Annemiek van Vleuten.

The Giro d'Italia Women went her way in 2024. She won the opening time trial in Brescia, led from the first day to the last and finished twenty-one seconds clear of Lotte Kopecky, with Neve Bradbury third. No Italian had won the race since Fabiana Luperini in 2008.

She joined UAE Team ADQ for 2025, after six seasons with the Trek team, and won the Giro again. Sixteen seconds down on Marlen Reusser going into the penultimate stage over Monte Nerone, she finished second on the climb, took the maglia rosa and won the race by eighteen seconds. The same season brought the UAE Tour overall, Dwars door Vlaanderen from a thirty-kilometre solo and De Brabantse Pijl for the second year running.

She has been among the more outspoken riders on the direction of women's racing, warning that the decline of grassroots racing beneath the WorldTour could eventually destabilise the top level itself.