In pursuit of the yellow jersey, Kasia Niewiadoma still has all eyes on Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime) at the halfway point of the Tour de France Femmes, even with Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck) winning the three-up sprint into Liège and ending stage 4 between her and the defending champion in the top three overall.
The Polish rider wasn’t aware Pieterse had won as she dried off from a soaking wet stage, warmed down and spoke to reporters including Cyclingnews, but she was quick not to underestimate the multi-discipline star when told that she had bested Vollering in a photo finish.
“Oh, she won? She owes me one, I did a good lead-out for her,” joked the Canyon-SRAM rider. “I mean, of course, we know that she’s a really talented rider. I know her from Classics racing,” said Niewiadoma, before admitting that she thinks the incoming high mountains could be Pieterse’s undoing in the general classification.
“I have never seen her racing on the longer climbs, so maybe because she is a mountain biker then she will be missing a bit more endurance than what we roadies have. Of course, I take her into account because she’s very talented and strong.
“But I still focus mainly on beating Demi [Vollering].”
Niewiadoma has been adamant about her goal of not settling for the podium, a feat she’s managed in the previous and only two editions of the Tour de France Femmes. Instead, she’s chasing fully for yellow, with a laser focus on the defending champion Vollering. However, she knew she had little chance in the sprint à trois final after the trio proved strongest over the Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons with 13km to go.
“I think the final 10kms, we were all working equally so it was really nice that Demi [Vollering[ and Puck [Pieterse] were committed to give the same amount of work,” said Niewiadoma.
“As we were approaching the final kilometres, I knew that Demi was the fastest so if I wanted to win, it was just from an early attack and I know that during Liège-Bastogne-Liège, an attack almost paid off so I had similar thoughts in mind.”
In April at the one-day race, Niewiadoma made her move with 1.2km to go out of a larger group and was quickly shut down by Elisa Longo Borghini, eventually ending up fifth. Today she played the final as well as she could, launching from the back of the trio with the surprise element and only being passed by Pieterse and Vollering inside the final 200m.
“I just waited until Demi [Vollering] was in the front so that it would be harder to react and I went for it. In the end, I got caught, I don’t know, 150 metres to go - so this time a bit closer than Liège so hopefully, next time it works out,” said Niewiadoma.
“The only thing you can do in the last metres is do your best, go all out. You just need that moment of hesitation from others. In my mind I was like ‘I just need to do the hardest 1k and see what happens’.”
And while she lost out on victory, Niewiadoma did make strong GC gains on all other rivals, jumping from 46th to third overall just 34 seconds down on Vollering - mainly due to the stage 3 time trial - and with a solid buffer of 22 and 47 seconds respectively over GC rivals Juliette Labous (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) and Evita Muzic (FDJ-Suez).
“To be honest, it’s just the beginning of the Tour. I felt good today, so it’s nice knowing that you approached a hard stage race in good shape,” said the Polish rider. “If we finished on the climb and I lost that would be a bit more hurtful than losing the sprint. I feel like I’m used to losing sprints in some ways,” she laughed.
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