As far as emotional and exuberant stage winners go, few have been more animated than Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig after her victory on stage 3 of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.
The Dane's win came after a disastrous day on stage 2, which saw Uttrup Ludwig and three of her teammates on the ground after crashes, and Marta Cavalli out of the race injured, something which was at the front of her mind as she battled to the line on Tuesday.
"The last kilometre, coming into the finish, I was like 'OK, I'm now going to fight for a stage victory in the Tour de France'," an emotional Uttrup Ludwig said after the stage. "I thought of them. I was like 'I'm going to do it for you, for Marta' just to say 'we bounced back, baby'."
Uttrup Ludwig made no secret of how tough the previous day was for the team, describing it as "gloomy and sad and shit", but put today's win down to the determination and mentality of her FDJ-SUEZ-Futuroscope team.
"What I think was pretty special in this team is that we were like 'we've got to keep fighting, because the Tour is not over yet'," she said. "We're gonna go out there and not quit because we're not quitters. We've got to show them, and I think we did that today."
The tears started almost as soon as the 26-year-old crossed the line, and she described the emotional scenes among her teammates.
"The girls were standing there in front when I was on the podium, I was just crying, crying, crying, and they were crying. It was special and we're going to celebrate tonight, I promise."
The win in Épernay is surely the high point of a difficult season for Uttrup Ludwig, who missed much of the Classics and the Ardennes because of COVID-19. After racing the Giro Donne in support of Cavalli, the Tour is her first race back as leader.
Even during the stage, the eventual winner had a challenging day: she had to fight to get back to the lead after being dropped on the final categorised climb, and explained how even in the last kilometre of the stage, she doubted her chances at the win.
"I felt like I was in quite a good spot being on Marianne [Vos]'s wheel under the flamme rouge, and then we turned right and left and I kind of lost the position," she said. "And I was like 'shit', I mean, 'oh no, no, no'. And Kasia [Niewiadoma] was already attacking at the bottom.
"But I just kept on fighting. I was like 'I can come back! I think I can come back! At least a podium, come on, at least a podium!' and then I was like 'oh, it's actually pretty good'. And then I just went for it, it's pretty amazing.
"You had to keep fighting, with the team, to have the motivation high. That is something I will remember for the rest of my life, I think."
After losing time on stage 2, Uttrup Ludwig's victory from the GC group that went to the finish saw her move up 41 places on the overall into 10th spot, but she remains balanced about her chances for the rest of the race.
"Of course, I also came here with GC ambitions," she said. "We'll take it day-by-day. Like I said, the Tour is not over yet. We have a pretty hard gravel stage tomorrow and two mountain stages so you know, a lot of things can happen."
