Up-and-coming Catalan star Paula Blasi has recognised that the 2026 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift was a steeper learning curve than she expected, but has promised that she will be back at the Tour with a wealth of race knowledge acquired from this August's edition.
Blasi, 23, has already won the Vuelta Femenina, Amstel Gold Race and Volta a Catalunya in her first full season, and those breakthrough results raised expectations enormously about what she could do in her first-ever Tour de France, which she completed in fifth overall.
However, a lack of initial clarity, pre-race, about her exact role in a very strong UAE Team L'IMAD line-up combined with intense media speculation. It finally faded away as the team centred increasingly on the defence of Elisa Longo Borghini's top placing overall, and as Blasi told TV3 at the time, what had been a 'massive ball of stress' lifted from her shoulders.
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Apart from Blasi's top-five finish, her squad came away with top spot in the teams prize and third place overall for Longo Borghini, and seventh for Domenica Włodarzyck, as well as a second place overall in the BYR ranking for Blasi, a classification she led for the first four days.
"It's been a real roller coaster," was how the Catalan described her first impressions of the race on Tuesday to AS.
"There were days when things went badly, others that were a bit better. I think I really got back on terms on stage 6, but I suffered from the stress you live through in the bunch as well.
"It was my first Tour, and truth to tell, it's not like any other race. You have to get used to it."
As a natural optimist, Blasi argued that she would like to believe the Tour is a race she can win. But she also said it was more challenging than she had expected, too.
"I've realised I'm not as close [to the very top] as maybe I thought. When they attack, I was lacking that extra little percent or two it takes.
"So I've got homework to do, and I hope to have done it in time for the next times round."
Blasi told AS that rather than form in itself, though, she realised that she had wasted a lot of energy due to poor placing. That was a steep learning curve that she mastered though, or as she said, "between the rider who turned up for stage 1 of the Tour and the one now… there's a world of difference."
"From day 1, you're going all out, full gas. I was actually surprised by that, and I told myself - hey, what happened to all that preparation you had?
"I was suffering from day 1, and that was, in theory, the easiest stage." But then I realised positioning was fundamental. If you aren't in the right place and you're too far back, then you need to shift double the amount of watts. So that's something I've learned."
Overall, she said, "I have to trust myself more, because when the high mountains come, the legs are there."
Having multiple cards to play in the shape of herself and Longo Borghini, the two strongest riders in UAE in terms of results, was a big advantage, she said. That was particularly the case as the race was very anarchic at times, and "the minute things started getting hectic, people were losing their teammates and ending up isolated. I think having two riders up there was a big plus."
Overall for Blasi, while the results throughout the Tour have given her a lot of confidence in the future and showed she has a role to play in cycling's top event, she also insisted she has to keep her feet firmly on the ground and not get overly ambitious too soon.
"It was my first Tour, all but my first year in the WorldTour so I don't think I can ask for much more," she said. "And I'm also getting more realistic.
"I wanted to show myself that the legs I had in the Vuelta could also count in the Tour, that it wasn't just a fluke."
Grand Tour racing in 2026 is now behind her, but as a bronze medallist in last year's World's U23 Road Race, Blasi promised that she would be heading to Canada this September to try and up her game there in Spanish national colours, too. Or as she put it to AS with her usual optimism, "That's definitely going to happen."
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