Kasia Niewiadoma keeps yellow jersey ahead of ‘crucial’ summit finishes set to decide Tour de France Femmes
Polish rider heads into final weekend of racing with 16-second lead on Kerbaol and 1:19 advantage on Vollering
![MORTEAU FRANCE AUGUST 16 Katarzyna Niewiadoma of Poland and Team CanyonSRAM Racing Yellow Leader Jersey C competes during the 3rd Tour de France Femmes 2024 Stage 6 a 1592km stage from Remiremont to Morteau UCIWWT on August 16 2024 in Morteau France Photo by Alex BroadwayGetty Images](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/RQgHGz5qoGXNsvoDQaJzQ4-320-80.jpg)
Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) survived a late scare from stage 6 winner Cédrine Kerbaol (Cerataizit-WNT) and held onto the yellow jersey heading into the final two days of the Tour de France Femmes, where the race will be decided.
For Niewiadoma, it was a day all about staying safe and ensuring she kept her lead as a decisive duo of summit finishes nears, but Kerbaol’s late attack 14.6km from the line saw her lead get as big as 40 seconds, which would have put her into the maillot jaune.
However, with teammate Neve Bradbury pulling and FDJ-Suez also committing riders, they were able to reduce the winning margin to just 21 seconds and the Polish rider kept control of the race lead.
“We were not stressing too much about it. We had Neve [Bradbury] who was pulling together with FDJ so I knew that when we came closer to the finish line, teams would be engaged in setting a harder pace, so in the end, it all ended up well for us,” said Niewiadoma in her post-race press conference.
While it was expected that Canyon-SRAM might work to try and expose any form missing for Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime), who crashed on stage 5 and lost her jersey to Niewiadoma, the focus was more on stages 7 and 8.
“To be honest, I think the whole peloton is focusing on the last two stages because they are the most crucial ones and the hardest ones,” Niewiadoma explained.
“Today was more like a breakaway day, but definitely getting into the final with all the climbs at the end and Puck [Pieterse] going for mountain points, I felt that there was a little testing in between us."
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This testing moment was when at the top of the final climb, the Côte des Fins, Niewiadoma pulled clear in a trio with Pieterse and Vollering, however, they didn’t hold any of their advantages as “none of us were very committed to putting the hammer down”.
While SD Worx confirmed that Vollering had been feeling better en route to Morteau after sustaining mainly superficial injuries in the high-speed crash, Niewiadoma still thought there could be weaknesses in the climbing core of their squad.
“I think of course they have a strong team but in the mountains, as we saw today, Demi was left with only Niamh Fisher-Black so let's see what they plan on doing tomorrow,” said Niewiadoma, echoing some of her pre-race thoughts at the Rotterdam media day.
“Of course, you can never underestimate Demi. She’s a super strong rider and also a very smart rider. We definitely recognise that maybe without Lotte [Kopecky] and without Marlen [Reusser], the team is weakened a little.
"But also they are not there to just watch the race, they are there to win the race. So we are aware of that and we just want to have a pure fight of strength.”
Can Niewiadoma defend the yellow jersey from Vollering and the rest? Le Grand Bornand and Alpe d'Huez will leave no room to hide.
Get unlimited access to all of our coverage of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes - including breaking news and analysis reported by our journalists on the ground from every stage as it happens and more. Find out more.
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James Moultrie is a gold-standard NCTJ journalist who joined Cyclingnews as a News Writer in 2023 after originally contributing as a freelancer for eight months, during which time he also wrote for Eurosport, Rouleur and Cycling Weekly. Prior to joining the team he reported on races such as Paris-Roubaix and the Giro d’Italia Donne for Eurosport and has interviewed some of the sport’s top riders in Chloé Dygert, Lizzie Deignan and Wout van Aert. Outside of cycling, he spends the majority of his time watching other sports – rugby, football, cricket, and American Football to name a few.