Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) survived a late scare from stage 6 winner Cédrine Kerbaol (Cerataizit-WNT) and held onto the yellow jersey heading into the ultimate two days of the Tour de France Femmes, the place the race can be determined.
For Niewiadoma, it was a day all about staying secure and guaranteeing she saved her lead as a decisive duo of summit finishes nears, however Kerbaol’s late assault 14.6km from the road noticed her lead get as huge as 40 seconds, which might have put her into the maillot jaune.
Nonetheless, with teammate Neve Bradbury pulling and FDJ-Suez additionally committing riders, they had been capable of cut back the successful margin to only 21 seconds and the Polish rider saved management of the race lead.
“We weren’t stressing an excessive amount of about it. We had Neve [Bradbury] who was pulling along with FDJ so I knew that once we got here nearer to the end line, groups can be engaged in setting a tougher tempo, so in the long run, all of it ended up effectively for us,” mentioned Niewiadoma in her post-race press convention.
Whereas it was anticipated that Canyon-SRAM would possibly work to attempt to expose any type lacking for Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime), who crashed on stage 5 and misplaced her jersey to Niewiadoma, the main focus was extra on phases 7 and eight.
“To be trustworthy, I feel the entire peloton is specializing in the final two phases as a result of they’re essentially the most essential ones and the toughest ones,” Niewiadoma defined.
“As we speak was extra like a breakaway day, however positively entering into the ultimate with all of the climbs on the finish and Puck [Pieterse] going for mountain factors, I felt that there was somewhat testing in between us.”
This testing second was when on the high of the ultimate climb, the Côte des Fins, Niewiadoma pulled clear in a trio with Pieterse and Vollering, nonetheless, they didn’t maintain any of their benefits as “none of us had been very dedicated to placing the hammer down”.
Whereas SD Worx confirmed that Vollering had been feeling higher en path to Morteau after sustaining primarily superficial accidents within the high-speed crash, Niewiadoma nonetheless thought there could possibly be weaknesses within the climbing core of their squad.
“I consider course they’ve a powerful group however within the mountains, as we noticed in the present day, Demi was left with solely Niamh Fisher-Black so let’s examine what they plan on doing tomorrow,” mentioned Niewiadoma, echoing a few of her pre-race ideas on the Rotterdam media day.
“After all, you possibly can by no means underestimate Demi. She’s an excellent sturdy rider and in addition a really sensible rider. We positively recognise that perhaps with out Lotte [Kopecky] and with out Marlen [Reusser], the group is weakened somewhat.
“But additionally they aren’t there to only watch the race, they’re there to win the race. So we’re conscious of that and we simply need to have a pure struggle of power.”
Can Niewiadoma defend the yellow jersey from Vollering and the remaining? Le Grand Bornand and Alpe d’Huez will depart no room to cover.
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