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 stored 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 massive as 40 seconds, which might have put her into the maillot jaune.
However, with teammate Neve Bradbury pulling and FDJ-Suez additionally committing riders, they have been in a position to scale back the profitable margin to simply 21 seconds and the Polish rider stored 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 after we got here nearer to the end line, groups could be engaged in setting a more durable tempo, so in the long run, all of it ended up properly for us,” mentioned Niewiadoma in her post-race press convention.
While 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 focus was extra on levels 7 and eight.
“To be trustworthy, I believe the entire peloton is specializing in the final two levels as a result of they’re essentially the most essential ones and the toughest ones,” Niewiadoma defined.
“Today was extra like a breakaway day, however undoubtedly stepping into the ultimate with all of the climbs on the finish and Puck [Pieterse] going for mountain factors, I felt that there was slightly testing in between us.”
This testing second was when on the prime 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 have been very dedicated to placing the hammer down”.
While 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 might be weaknesses within the climbing core of their squad.
“I consider course they’ve a robust staff however within the mountains, as we noticed at the moment, 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.
“Of course, you possibly can by no means underestimate Demi. She’s a brilliant robust rider and likewise a really good rider. We undoubtedly recognise that perhaps with out Lotte [Kopecky] and with out Marlen [Reusser], the staff is weakened slightly.
“But additionally they aren’t there to simply 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 remainder? Le Grand Bornand and Alpe d’Huez will depart no room to cover.
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