Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) has now finished in the top ten of the Tour of Flanders Women for four years in a row, and she was part of the winning move both in 2024 and 2025.
But a year after her runner-up finish, the Polish all-rounder took fourth out of four in the sprint on Sunday, missing out to riders with a better burst of speed.
"I’m definitely happy with how the team rode. We were able to find each other in the final, and I was able to save my legs for a very big chunk of time," Niewiadoma said in a TV interview after the race.
She had had teammate Chloé Dygert with her until the Oude Kwaremont and then chased back from behind on the key climb to join eventual winner Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime), Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike), and Liane Lippert (Movistar) at the front.
Niewiadoma set the pace on the Paterberg but couldn’t drop any of her companions, and the quartet stayed together onto the final kilometre just outside Oudenaarde as a headwind on the run-in made attacks unlikely to stay away.
"It's just a bummer, riding with four. Even though I was still thinking ‘I can win it’, there’s also the fear of, like, ‘you can be the fourth one’. I tried not to focus on that, but I was also with super fast riders in the group, so, yeah…," Niewiadoma trailed off.
Nevertheless, Niewiadoma tried to surprise the stronger sprinters, launching an attack with the finish line in sight. But the long and hard race had taken its toll on her, and Niewiadoma’s legs had nothing left to give.
"I tried, and I cramped immediately. So I was like, ‘okay, that was a super tough day’. I think my options will always be those late attacks because I’m just not a sprinter," she said.
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