Ewers credits wide tyres for top Tour de France Femmes gravel stage placing

Veronica Ewers (Education First-TIBCO-SVB) earned her first WorldTour top-five of her fledgling career on Wednesday, navigating the gravel with ease and joining a late move on stage 4 of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift and finishing fourth behind stage winner Marlen Reusser (SD Worx).

Ewers, who said she had only ridden on gravel "six or seven times" before today, described how she did not plan to be up the road on the gravel tracks between Troyes and Bar-sur-Aube.

Ewers commended the Education First-TIBCO-SVB's equipment on a day when teams had to make careful decisions to deal with gravel, pavement and climbs.

"It was fun feeling like I was in control of the bike," she said. "We rode 30mm Vittoria tyres today and that was super beneficial. I definitely noticed it on the pavement, being a little bit more drag I guess, but it saved me on the gravel, clearly. There were a lot of people puncturing and crashing today, but I felt super comfortable and confident on the gravel."

"No, not really," she said when asked if she expected to be in a breakaway on stage 4. "I was like 'OK, gotta be up towards the front at this kilometre and be towards the front in the first gravel section and then see where you're at, hope for the best, hope I have some luck today'. But yeah, solid equipment and luck were on my side today."

It may not have been the plan, but Ewers found herself in the GC group going into the final 10km, and took the chance on a climb to bridge to the counter-attackers Évita Muzic (FDJ-SUEZ-Futuroscope) and Alena Amialiusik (Canyon-SRAM).

"On the second to last longer climb on the pavement, when I attacked to bridge to Évita and Alena, my DS was telling me 'this is your chance', I was like 'ahhh, OK, this is gonna hurt!'" she said. "But it worked out in my favour. Top five result [in a WorldTour race] for the first time for myself so it's pretty exciting."

A former football player, Ewers only joined the pro ranks as a stagiaire for TIBCO-SVB last summer, and is still finding her feet in the peloton. Despite stage 4 being one of the most hectic days in what has been a hectic Tour de France, the American found some time to enjoy the day.

"I had a friend say to me before this race 'go out there and have fun'," Ewers recalled. "And I'm like, it's fun, but I'm scared shitless like 85% of the time because I'm still trying to navigate the peloton. But once it was a smaller group, I was like 'OK, this is awesome'. I honestly had a really good time in the gravel sections today."

Despite some big results so far this season, including victory at the Navarra Women's Classic, Ewers described how she is still getting used to being recognised in the peloton

"I've had a few big names, like Ashleigh [Moolman-Pasio] came up to me at the Women's Tour and was like 'hey Veronica, you're doing a good job' and I was like 'oh my god, you know my name!'," she said. "So I still have moments where I'm like fangirling over these big hitters. I'm almost in tears and in shock when they know my name, so it's pretty fun."

After today's result, Ewers will certainly have put her name in the minds of many more of the peloton's "big hitters".