It's rare to see a rider as happy as Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-SRAM) was about finishing 13th in a stage, but the Polish rider couldn't have been more joyful as she returned to her Canyon campervan at their finish in Dijon on Tuesday following the Tour de France Femmes stage 4 time trial.
At the time, Niewiadoma-Phinney didn't even know exactly where she had finished, but she had felt good enough on her time trial bike to be able to celebrate, and did at least know that she had taken time on one big rival, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike).
"It's funny because actually everybody tells me it's good and I haven't seen the results yet," she said at the finish – she finished 13th on the stage, 1:09 down on winner Marlen Reusser (Movistar).
Latest Videos FromCyclingnews
"I felt like I found my flow, I definitely spent a huge amount of time working on my TT skills because as everyone knew, I wasn't the best at it. And yeah, as you can see, if you believe in something and you put a good amount of work in, anything is possible."
What Niewiadoma-Phinney was hoping to be possible was just to limit her losses in the discipline that hasn't always treated her well in the past, but indeed exceeded her own expectations by taking time on some of the riders she seemed sure would finish in front of her.
"The goal for today was to minimise the losses to riders like Demi, Anna van der Breggen, Marlen Reusser, Longo Borghini. It's of course also nice to be in front of Pauline moving towards Mont Ventoux and other harder stages."
So why was Niewiadoma-Phinney so good on Tuesday? She had been careful to not overhype her abilities in the run-up to the TT, but it's also no secret that she's been working on her TT consistently for the last year at least.
"I'm married to a TT specialist, so for once I listened to his advice," she laughed when asked what the key to her improvement was.
"As I said before, I'm very lucky to be surrounded by professional people, in my team looking for details and how to improve my position, Canyon taking me to a wind tunnel, and my coach working on my physical as well as mental side. Also my husband tuning things up and me giving the best today. So I think it's a combination of massive teamwork."
"I'm super grateful to all the people that were with me along the journey to get to this place, because always the Tour de France is such a big goal for myself and my team and we always want to come here to bring that yellow jersey again. Definitely this result puts us closer to the dream," she said.
In the pursuit of that dream, Niewiadoma-Phinney now has perhaps her biggest challenge out of the way, and can look ahead to some still very challenging stages, but ones that suit her abilities more than the race against the clock.
"I was definitely looking forward to this particular moment, to be done with the TT and just focus on the climbs," she said. "Honestly I feel like from tomorrow on, the stage race will properly start.
"Tomorrow it's going to be a super hard stage and we're here to be aggressive. We have a strong team, so we want to do our best. We're in a great shape so what else can you do other than race your bike now?"
Support our unrivalled coverage of the Tour de France Femmes and women's cycling by subscribing to Cyclingnews. In return, you get unlimited access to high-quality journalism, with breaking news, race analysis, and expert insight from inside the women's peloton. Plus, the Cyclingnews app lets you follow the action wherever you go! Join today.
