Niewiadoma-Phinney left confused by European Championship crash as Longo Borghini rues 'rookie mistake'
A late crash ended Niewiadoma-Phinney's hopes of adding a silver medal to the one she took in Montréal last weekend.
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Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Poland) crashed in the final kilometre of the European Road Race Championships in Šenčur, ruling her out of a reduced group sprint for silver, behind runaway winner Demi Vollering (Netherlands).
“Yeah, I’m definitely sore,” Niewiadoma-Phinney told CyclingProNet at the finish. “I have no idea, honestly. We were all just fighting for the corner, and then I think I lost the front wheel. But I need to rewatch it. I have no idea.”
Niewiadoma-Phinney, Puck Pieterse (Netherlands), and Vollering were the final three riders remaining at the head of the race on the punishing Možjanca ascent, before the world champion powered clear with 14.6km remaining.
Pieterse remained on Niewiadoma-Phinney’s wheel, playing the team card and having been the rider to decimate the field for Vollering on the climb alongside Femke De Vries.
This allowed Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy), Antonia Niedermaier (Germany), and Marlen Reusser (Switzerland) to return to the duo in the contest for the remaining medals.
“The pace on the climb was quite hard,” said Niewiadoma-Phinney. “On the last one, I felt like I had it until Demi, of course, accelerated from a very hard pace. So yeah, she’s super strong.”
Following her crash, Niewiadoma-Phinney finished sixth, 45 seconds behind Vollering. In the end, Pieterse won the sprint for silver to complete a Dutch 1-2, with Reusser taking third.
Longo Borghini, who took fourth, was left frustrated with the finale, describing her own positioning on the final corner as a “rookie mistake,” while making clear that she did not blame Niewiadoma-Phinney for the incident.
“I felt like I made a rookie mistake on the last corner. I wanted to take [the final corner] in second place. Kasia slipped, and she kind of took me off my trajectory, but it’s nobody’s fault,' Longo Borghini told CyclingProNet.
“I mean, this is something that happens in cycling too. I had to be smarter today, and I wasn’t.”
Result: European Championships elite women's road race
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