When the attack came from Demi Vollering with 53 kilometres of the Tour de France Femmes remaining, it looked like that was the moment. On the steepest gradients of the Col du Glandon, the SD Worx rider did what we had all been expecting: she got out of the saddle, accelerated and began her bid to win back the yellow jersey. The gap opened up almost immediately. Race leader Kasia Niewiadoma was dropped quickly from Vollering’s back wheel and It looked like the start of the climbing supremacy we are so used to seeing from the Dutch rider. But this stage was not going to go to script. On the rollercoaster roads of the Alps, the Tour had plot twists in store.
As the kilometres ticked down, the distance between Vollering and her chasers behind did not go up. Instead, it stabilised, bobbing up and down between one minute and 15 seconds. The descent through the fog down the Glandon came and went, then the exposed valley road, then, eventually, the intimidating slopes of the mythical Alpe d’Huez, yet still the time hovered. It was not the trademark Volering attack that usually sees her put minutes into her rivals. This year, the Tour de France Femmes was different. That difference was Kasia Niewiadoma.
Once the eternal bridesmaid, constantly on the second and third step of the podium rather than on the top, the Polish rider has finally taken her time in the brightest spotlight of them all. When the orange jersey of Vollering disappeared into the mist in front of Niewiadoma on the Glandon, some riders might have given up. They might have accepted that the pre-race favourite and defending Tour champion would take the race victory, as everyone had predicted. That was how it was supposed to go. But the word ‘defeat’ does not even feature in Kasia Niewiadoma’s vocabulary.
Bright in yellow against the overcast mountains, the Canyon//SRAM star rode on. Pain was etched on her face as the gradients of Alpe d’Huez continued to bite, but her head never dropped. On and on she rode, powered by the strength of the maillot jaune on her shoulders. This is Kasia: the fighter, the attacker, the one who never gives up. The one who will battle all the way to the finish line, even when the odds are stacked against her.
“When Demi attacked it was terrible because the climb was so hard and I could feel like I was losing my legs then,” Niewiadoma said after the race. “I had to stay patient and keep my pace on descent. I got my power back and I knew that I just had to push my best on my final ascent.”
In the end, it was just four seconds that won Niewiadoma the Tour de France Femmes. She made the difference with every determined pedal stroke, in every switchback where she got out of the saddle. She was powered by years of missing out, fuelled by seasons of near misses and bad luck, encouraged by the cheers of fans on the road who waved flags with her name on. Every fibre of her being was fighting to hold on.
“It was nail biting. We thought we lost it, then we thought we had it, then we lost it then we thought we had it. Oh, my goodness, that was unbelievable. I think in any sport, I’ve never been through such an emotional rollercoaster,” Canyon//SRAM team boss Ronny Luake said after the stage. “Since the Tour de France Femmes was invented, we have all dreamed of winning it one day. We have it now in the third edition. It's unbelievable.”
The significance of Niewiadoma’s win cannot be underestimated. Canyon//SRAM have been in the shadows of SD Worx for so many seasons, so often outnumbered and outperformed by the Dutch squad. This year, things were different. The yellow jersey may have unexpectedly come into the German team after Vollering’s stage five crash, but Niewiadoma’s gritty performance on the Alpe d’Huez proves that she is every bit the Tour champion.
“The jersey fell into our hands on stage five and there was that whole debate whether it was luck but I think this past weekend, especially as the races got harder and harder, we just showed that we deserve it. We earned it and we kept it and we defended it, and Kasia has made us all so proud,” Alice Towers, Niewiadoma’s teammate, said after the stage, wiping tears from her dust-stained face.
“We've really stepped up to defend the jersey. We've been making mistakes and learning, and the sports directors have been also learning as we go. I just can't believe it. It's almost like I won it myself.”
In the end, Niewiadoma’s Tour de France Femmes victory is for many, many more people than just herself. It’s for those who have watched her with their fingers crossed as she attacked season after season, it’s to prove those who doubted her ability to ever do this wrong, it’s for her teammates who have sacrificed everything to help her get here. It’s for the love of cycling itself, something that Niewiadoma personifies. The 29-year-old is a pure, unfiltered, raw bike racer. She left a part of her soul on the slopes of Alpe d’Huez today, and the world will long remember her for it.
“I believe you always have to keep pushing and trying hard, even if things don't go your way,” Niewiadoma grinned in her post-race press conference. “There are weeks when things are perfect. Besides putting in a lot of hard work, the stars have to align. We wrote history this week and I am so proud to be on the top step.”
