Niewiadoma surprises herself as Longo Borghini’s strong time trial is ruined by bike change

During Tuesday’s Tour de France Femmes time trial, most of the attention was focused on Marlen Reusser, Demi Vollering and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot. The first two were considered capable of winning the stage, while the main question surrounding the Frenchwoman was whether she could limit her losses. As a result, some of the other international contenders may have received less attention than their performances deserved.

One of those riders was Elisa Longo Borghini, who finished tenth for UAE Team ADQ. She revealed to Eurosport afterwards that the result could have been even better had she not suffered bad luck during the closing part of the course. “My chain came off, so I had to change bikes. My final time was reasonably good, but I am still a little disappointed.”

“On the other hand, I felt good today. I had recorded a very strong time at the first intermediate checkpoint, and I hoped I could maintain that pace all the way to the finish. But I lost a considerable amount of time because the chain came off,” the Italian explained.

“I eventually finished tenth, but overall it was a better time trial than I had expected. Fortunately, I am still in a good position compared with the other general-classification favourites. I would have preferred to be in a stronger position, but this is the situation now.”

Her teammate Paula Blasi finished one place behind her in eleventh. “I am very pleased with my performance today. There are always things that can be improved, but overall I can be happy. I was quite worried about pushing myself too far on the climb, so I took things more cautiously on the flat section. Once you reach the climb already exhausted, there is no way back,” the Spanish rider said.

“I am enjoying the white jersey more than ever today because, until now, I was not completely certain that I really was the strongest young rider. Being able to retain it ahead of Antonia Niedermaier, who is an excellent time triallist, is a major success. It is great to be able to wear it for another day.”

Kasia Niewiadoma, who is not generally regarded as a specialist against the clock, also produced a strong time trial by her standards. She finished thirteenth, one place ahead of Anna van der Breggen. “I have invested a huge amount of time in my time trial because, as everyone knows, it was never my strongest discipline. But this shows that when you believe in something and work extremely hard for it, anything is possible,” the Polish rider told Eurosport.

“The main objective today was to keep the time loss to riders such as Demi, Anna, Marlen and Longo Borghini as small as possible. It is also encouraging to finish ahead of Pauline with stage two and the more difficult stages still to come in mind. Honestly, I feel as though the race will only truly begin tomorrow,” she said.

“I am incredibly grateful to everyone who helped me reach this point. The Tour de France is such an important objective for both me and the team. We have come here to fight for the yellow jersey, and this result brings us another step closer to that dream,” said Niewiadoma, who has also benefited greatly from the help of her husband, former professional rider Taylor Phinney, during the past few weeks. “I am married to a time triallist! So, for a change, I decided to listen to his advice!”

“But seriously, I am fortunate to be surrounded by absolute professionals. My team examines every small detail to improve my position on the bike, Canyon took me to the wind tunnel, my coach worked extremely hard with me both physically and mentally, my husband set everything up perfectly, and I simply gave everything I had today. This really is the result of fantastic teamwork,” she concluded.

“To be honest, I had really been looking forward to this specific moment: having the time trial behind me so that I can simply focus on the climbs. Tomorrow will be an extremely difficult stage. We are here to race aggressively, and we have an incredibly strong team. We are going to give it everything. My form is excellent, so the only thing we can do now is race as hard as possible!”