Three former Tour de France Femmes winners will line up among those contesting yellow once again this summer, with most previews anticipating a headline-grabbing duel between reigning champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and 2023 winner Demi Vollering.
In that sense, 2024 winner Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney has been perhaps overlooked somewhat in the lead-up to this year's fifth edition of the Grand Tour.
But the Pole, who held off a late Vollering charge on L'Alpe d'Huez to win the race two summers ago, has no doubts about her ambitions for this year's race.
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"I think the goal is clear. I would say that each one of us can say that – maybe not Lorena," Niewiadoma-Phinney said, sat alongside fellow GC contenders Paula Blasi, Kim Le Court-Pienaar, and sprinter Lorena Wiebes in a pre-race press conference on Friday.
"We want to win the yellow jersey. I think that's all we can say."
The Polish racer followed up her Tour triumph – her first stage race win since the Tour de l'Ardèche in 2018 – with a third place in France last year, finishing 4:09 down on Ferrand-Prévot.
The long, brutal ascent of the Col de la Madeleine – 18.9km at 8% – was where the 2025 race was won and lost as the Frenchwoman soloed to victory almost two minutes ahead of anyone else and 3:26 up on Niewiadoma-Phinney.
The standout stage on this year's route is another iconic climb in the shape of the giant of Provence, Mont Ventoux, which measures 15.7km at an average of 8.8%. Once again, the race is likely to be won and lost on the race's highlight summit finish.
"It's definitely a very iconic climb. It's going to be hard. It's a lot," Niewiadoma-Phinney said.
"The steepest part is in the forest. I feel like I don't believe anyone will be waiting for the final kilometres to make the decisive move. So I think even like watching the guys race, we can all expect a hard start and then survival till the top."
Niewiadoma-Phinney has already tackled one mythical mountain in 2026, finishing 11th on the Alto de l'Angliru at La Vuelta Femenina back in May en route to eighth place overall.
She's certainly relishing the chance to face up to the challenge of Ventoux, most recently seen in pro cycling when Valentin Paret-Peintre soared to a breakaway victory at the men's race last year.
"The race will show it, but I feel fit, I feel prepared, and I feel like I'm ready to break Kim's KOM on Mont Ventoux. You have it right now, right?" she said, before Le Court-Pienaar corrected her.
"Oh, you are second! I thought you had it."
"I think we're definitely going to break it. I don't have it, but we will take it... I'll take it," came the reply.
"I'll take it. See you on Friday!" laughed Niewiadome-Phinney.
Of course, the battle up Ventoux is not all there is to the Tour, which starts in Lausanne with a challenging hilltop finish and concludes in Nice with a stage tackling four ascents of the Col d'Eze.
There's the return of the long time trial, too. Stage 4 brings a 21km test in Dijon against the clock, the longest time trial on the Tour route since the 22.6km closer in Pau three years ago.
On that day, Niewiadoma-Phinney lost over a minute to Vollering and another of this year's likely contenders, Marlen Reusser. Time trials of such lengths are few and far between in women's cycling, and she hasn't raced one so far this season. She acknowledged the discipline isn't her strongest suit.
"The time trial isn't my strongest side, but I've also had enough time to prepare for it," she said.
"I accept the fact that I definitely will lose time to riders like Marlen, Anna [van der Breggen], and Demi, so it's all about finding opportunities elsewhere. After the time trial, I feel like until the end of the Tour, there's plenty of them. So it's all about seizing the chance and not being too shy.
"For me, the Nationals time trial this year was quite an important goal, but I crashed the day before, so I couldn't really prove myself that I was feeling good.
"But for sure, the days before the race, I was feeling quite ready. I trained quite a lot with the time trial, so I'm really excited to see how I feel."
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