One of the GC winners on Saturday’s stage 1 of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift was Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-SRAM Zondacrypto), who took time on all but one of her key overall rivals when she crossed the line in fourth. Still, that wasn’t enough for the defending champion, not when she felt more was in reach.
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike) threw a spanner in the works for her rivals when she rode off the front of the field on the climb to the finish, before Kim Le Court (AG Insurance-Soudal) and teammate Marianne Vos bridged and sprinted for the victory, with Vos claiming the stage and first yellow of the race.
"[Anna] van der Breggen tried to close the gap but pulled off all of a sudden, so I was like, ‘Ah shit, nobody wants to do it’. It was almost too late to really react," said Niewiadoma-Phinney. "I was then waiting for a sprinter to start sprinting, but that never happened.”
If Niewiadoma had had a chance to look back, she would have seen a field behind that was completely split apart, with no one able to close the gap. Niewiadoma's reaction, late as it was, put her in fourth, crossing the line with the same time as the leading three but missing out on the time bonuses.
That meant the Canyon-SRAM Zondacrypto rider fell four seconds in arrears to key overall rival Ferrand-Prévot but gained on all the others.
The 2023 winner, Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez), was the best of the rest, coming fifth at three seconds back, while Van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) was five seconds in arrears and then Pauliena Rooijakkers (Fenix-Deceuninck) and Niamh Fisher-Black (Lidl-Trek) were among a group at nine seconds behind Niewiadoma-Phinney.
“I felt good, but I'm just kind of annoyed in some ways at how it ended up,” she said straight after the stage. “I feel like if we had maybe a different approach, we could have gotten better results.”
Despite the overall gains, it is clearly difficult to watch a potential stage win slip away, particularly given Niewiadoma-Phinney has been close so often.
She has won the race overall and been on the GC podium of every edition since the women’s event was reintroduced in 2022 and, while she has made the stage podium four times, a stage win has escaped her.
When asked before the racing started if she had to choose between a podium and a stage win, Niewiadoma-Phinney said, “I would say that I would prefer to win a stage on the Col de Madeleine and then put myself in the proper place on GC.”
And there is no doubting that Niewiadoma-Phinney sees that 'proper place' as once again taking the yellow jersey at the end of the race.
"I believe that my chances are very high," said Niewiadoma-Phinney. "I won this race already and I want to win it again."
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