Niewiadoma 'rips the corners' but only gains two seconds on stage 6

After an aggressive and attentive opening to this year’s Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, defending champion, Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon//SRAM-zondacrypto) is back in the mountains and her favourite terrain. And while she did score bonus seconds on the day’s intermediate sprint, a late move didn’t pay off for the Polish champion, who finished with the other GC riders.

The stage between Clermont Ferrand and Ambert played out much as the earlier stages have, with a big fight for the breakaway making for a challenging start.The break was then reeled back in on the day’s last classified climb, the Col du Chansert, leaving a small GC group at the head of the race .

Eventual winner Maeva Squiban (UAE Team ADQ) attacked on the Chansert, just over 30km from the line, leaving the GC group fighting for places. As one of the best descenders in the bunch, the final 7km downhill to the line in Ambert was good for Niewiadoma-Phinney and though she didn’t get away, she saw more opportunities in the final kilometre into the line. 

There, she and Cédrine Kerbaol ( EF Education-Oatly) tried to use their bike handling skills, making an unsuccessful attack ahead of three tight bends on the run-in to the line in Ambert.

“I like Cédrine and I feel like any time there’s an opportunity for both of us to rip the corners we always do it,” Niewiadoma-Phinney said. “I knew she was going to go for  it, and unfortunately it was still quite far from the last corner until the finish line I guess if it was like 200m maybe we could have tried something.”

In the end, Niewiadoma-Phinney finished 12th on the stage, 1:13 behind Squiban but on the same time as the rest of the GC favourites, though her two bonus points moved her into third place overall, swapping places with Demi Vollering (FDJ-SUEZ).

Stage 6 heralded the Tour’s first visit to the mountains this year, and while the mountains of the Massif Centrale cannot match those of the Alps, where the race will be for the weekends final two stages, the terrain changed the dynamic. 

“It was definitely nice to have a smaller bunch towards the end of the stage,” she said. “I feel like as of right now maybe I’m more mentally tired from being in this crazy peloton than physically from doing all the efforts, so definitely it was nice just do the climbs have a smaller group and do the work.

“I think it was a good stage for us, We tried to stay together as much as possible always in certain moments I have team mates around so that was perfect.”

There’ll be more descending on Friday’s back-ended stage between Bourg-en-Bresse and Chambéry, with the 17km following the day’s final climb, the Col du Granierall downhill.