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 might be determined.
For Niewiadoma, it was a day all about staying secure and making certain 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 large as 40 seconds, which might have put her into the maillot jaune.
Nevertheless, with teammate Neve Bradbury pulling and FDJ-Suez additionally committing riders, they had been in a position to cut back the successful margin to simply 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 more durable tempo, so ultimately, all of it ended up nicely for us,” mentioned Niewiadoma in her post-race press convention.
Whereas it was anticipated that Canyon-SRAM may work to try to expose any type lacking for Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime), who crashed on stage 5 and misplaced her jersey to Niewiadoma, the main target was extra on phases 7 and eight.
“To be sincere, I feel the entire peloton is specializing in the final two phases as a result of they’re probably the most essential ones and the toughest ones,” Niewiadoma defined.
“At this time was extra like a breakaway day, however undoubtedly moving into the ultimate with all of the climbs on the finish and Puck [Pieterse] going for mountain factors, I felt that there was a bit of 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, nevertheless, 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 staff however within the mountains, as we noticed at the moment, Demi was left with solely Niamh Fisher-Black so let’s see what they plan on doing tomorrow,” mentioned Niewiadoma, echoing a few of her pre-race ideas on the Rotterdam media day.
“After all, you’ll be able to by no means underestimate Demi. She’s an excellent sturdy rider and in addition a really good rider. We undoubtedly recognise that perhaps with out Lotte [Kopecky] and with out Marlen [Reusser], the staff is weakened a bit of.
“But in addition they don’t seem to be there to simply watch the race, they’re there to win the race. So we’re conscious of that and we simply wish to have a pure struggle of energy.”
Can Niewiadoma defend the yellow jersey from Vollering and the remaining? Le Grand Bornand and Alpe d’Huez will go away no room to cover.
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