It has undoubtedly been a tough Tour de France Femmes for UAE Team ADQ, first with Elisa Longo Borghini out, then Eleonora Gasparrini and Karlijn Swinkels. Yet it’s clear after the efforts of the remaining riders on stage 5 that the motivation to make the most of the race hasn’t died, it has just shifted focus.
“Hey, you gotta try, don't you? That's what we're here for. Sport is entertainment at the end of the day,” Brodie Chapman told Cyclingnews in Guéret after heading up to the stage to take the prize for the most combative rider on stage 5.
It was an award the 34-year-old earned by bridging to the break and then attacking from the front group on the penultimate climb. The Australian time trial champion was swept up at the bottom of the final ascent at around 11km to go, at which point her French teammate Maeve Squiban also made an attempt to get away.
Chapman, who started her European career at FDJ Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope – the predecessor to FDJ-SUEZ – had special memories of the region as the day of racing. The stage, which started from Chasseneuil-du-Poitou Futuroscope, was the longest of the event at 165.8km, and Chapman made the decision to take her chance with plenty of kilometres to play with.
“You never know – if you can get up the road and go long, it's kind of up to the peloton if you give everything in the breakaway," said Chapman. "We have a bit of a small team now, so we're always just looking for opportunities.”
Francesca Barale (Picnic-PostNL) initiated the day's breakaway, and was joined by Alison Jackson (EF Education-Oatly), Catalina Soto Campos (Laboral Kutxa-Fundacion Euskadi) and Anneke Dijkstra (VolkerWessels). The four had 90 seconds on the bunch when Chapman attacked to bridge across to the group. I took 5km, but once she was across, she helped to power their advantage to a maximum of 4:30 with 70km to go, but that didn't last.
First Dijkstra and Soto fell away, then with her attack, Chapman shed Jackson and then Barale, who fought to hang onto the rider who she knows the strengths and weaknesses of well, as they are both training partners with Longo Borghini.
"I guess we can thank Elisa for putting us through some suffering so we could be in the break today," joked a buoyant Chapman, adding graciously that she actually thought Barale was deserving of the most combative award given she started the break.
At the time Chapman laid down that attack, it was clear the riders behind were on a mission, with the GC at stake as well as a stage but there was certainly no sitting up from Chapman who fought on until she was caught, and then some fought some more.
"You've just got to have a bit of optimism that you can pull it off. Otherwise, you know, what's the point? So it depends on the dynamic of the race – who comes across, what happens behind you. You've always got to keep believing otherwise your legs give up," said Chapman.
Still, there comes a point when the writing on the wall is too hard to look past.
"When it was like seven seconds near the end I was like 'OK, ciao'."
The attempt which helped animate the race may not have worked out this time, but there are still four stages to go, so it's probably a good bet that we will see Chapman and her teammates on the attack again.
"I have to just check in with the legs and check in with the situation of the race, but all of us here are pretty motivated to keep trying," said Chapman. "Why not?"
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