'Less stressful, less sickness, less injury' – A year on from disastrous Tour de France Femmes debut Australia's Lucie Fityus embraces new role at Picnic-PostNL

The Tour de France Femmes this year welcomed seven riders from Australia and New Zealand, among them GC hopefuls, stage hunters, and a newcomer to the year's biggest race. Among their number is Picnic-PostNL rider Lucie Fityus, who started the second Tour of her career in Lausanne this weekend, and has already had a better time of it than in her debut year.

Her 2025 Tour de France didn't go entirely to plan the first time around with struggles during the Grand Départ in Brittany leading to her narrowly missing the time cut by 11 seconds on the second stage. This year, in new colours at Picnic PostNL, she's through the first two days and was part of the team supporting British racer Josie Nelson to a top-10 finish on stage 2 in Geneva.

Speaking to Cyclingnews after the finish, Fityus reflected on her debut last summer – "If you can call that first one a first one."

"There's definitely, definitely better feelings going in, a lot more organisation, and a much better run-in to this. So yeah, it's a lot more positive," she added, before revealing what went wrong in 2025 and what has changed in 2026.

"The preparation, absolutely. I didn't have a good experience at altitude last year, and then a lot of stress around my studies as well.

"So it was a lot less stressful coming in, less sickness, less injury. Very smooth."

This time around, she has avoided altitude, instead staying low in the run-up to the Tour and training in hot weather in Girona. This, after all, is a Tour where the temperature rarely reaches below 30°C and where stages are being threatened by wildfires.

"We focussed on staying at level and getting really good quality training in. It's been actually quite good for heat adaptation as well because I live in Girona, so it's been very hot," Fityus said.

Fityus, 25, hails from Newcastle in New South Wales, while her road to the very top level of cycling dates back to early years spent in the Perth-based setup, Cycling Development Foundation.

Four years there – "they’ve been a massive part of my development the whole way through," she said after she signed with Picnic PostNL – led to a stint with leading Australian development program ARA-Skip Capital.

Those development years, on both track and road, all led to a contract with French ProTeam St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93 for 2025, when she racked up top-10 finishes at the Surf Coast Classic and Scheldeprijs as well as debuting at a host of spring's toughest Classics races, including the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

She has balanced racing with her civil engineering degree – "I have one more subject left, and then I'm finished," she said – and now she's back at the Tour having signed a two-year deal in the Women's WorldTour.

"It's definitely different. I think the WorldTour level is where you really step up a level in terms of support. But I really enjoy both teams," she said of her squad switch.

"I had a great time in St Michel last year. They're fantastic, but again this year with Picnic-PostNL, I'm really enjoying it. They are fantastic, also."

Her first year at Picnic hasn't all gone to plan, with Fityus admitting that her Classics campaign wasn't as strong as it could've been, but she has taken on a new racing role as a support rider and has spent time learning how to adapt to those new demands.

"I didn't get as much out of myself in the Classics as I wanted, but it's really been about embracing a new role for me in that support role for a leader, which I haven't done much before," she said.

"I've been more of an opportunistic rider in previous years but this year has been really about learning how to support a leader, and feeding and positioning and things like that. So I've really learned a lot."

At the Tour, she has been joined in the Picnic squad by former Classic Brugge-De Panne champion Pfeiffer Georgi, in a team that had started out focussed on supporting 22-year-old Eleonora Ciabocco, sixth at the UAE Tour back in February, for a good GC ride.

There'll be a retooling of team goals the rest of the way, however, after Ciabocco unfortunately lost 12 minutes on the road to Geneva.

"Look, our goals were focussing on GC with Eleanora. Unfortunately, she had a bit of a rough day today, so those might be a bit off the cards," she said.

"But I'm sure now that we're going to refocus for the stages and see what we can do there."

Fityus, in her own words an admitted opportunist, might yet get a chance to seek out a chance for herself this week, after all.

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