Despite being just 21 kilometres long, the Stage 4 individual time trial at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift delivered the first major shake-up in the general classification. As anticipated, world time trial champion Marlen Reusser (Movistar) powered to victory, while the rest of the GC contenders spent the day trying to limit their losses.
Riders like Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ) and Demi Vollering (FDJ-SUEZ) emerged from the day in strong positions, now sitting fifth and second overall respectively. Defending champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma | Lease a Bike), however, endured a nightmare, conceding more than two minutes and tumbling to 14th in the general classification.
For Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-SRAM), the day went exactly as planned. The 2024 Tour de France Femmes champion finished 13th on the stage, 1:08 behind Reusser, but successfully limited her losses to the other GC favourites and, crucially, finished ahead of Ferrand-Prévot before the race reaches the high mountains.
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“The goal for today was to minimise losses to riders like Demi Vollering, Elisa Longo Borghini and Marlen Reusser,” Niewiadoma-Phinney said after the stage. “Of course it’s nice to be in front of Pauline ahead of Mont Ventoux and the other hard stages.”
Heading into the Tour’s first major climbing test, Niewiadoma-Phinney sits sixth overall, with just 1:09 separating the top six riders.
The Polish rider revealed she had invested heavily in improving her time trialling, fully aware of how important the stage could be in shaping this year’s Tour.
“I felt that I found my flow. I spent huge amounts of time working on my TT skills, because as everyone knows, I wasn’t the best at it,” she said. “As you can see, if you believe in something and you put a good amount of work in, anything is possible.”
Niewiadoma-Phinney was delighted with her performance and admitted she would have gladly accepted the result before rolling down the start ramp.
“One hundred percent. I’m super grateful for all the people that were with me on the journey to get to this place. The Tour de France is such a big goal for myself and the team. We want to come here to bring the yellow jersey home again. That result puts us closer to that dream.”
She credited the ride to a collective effort that included technical work on her position, equipment and coaching, while jokingly acknowledging some advice from her husband, former American time trial specialist Taylor Phinney.
“I’m married to a TT specialist so, for once, I listened to his advice,” she laughed. “I’m very lucky to be surrounded by professional people, my team looking for details to improve my position, Canyon taking me to a wind tunnel, my coach working on me physically. I think it was a combination of massive teamwork.”
With the race now turning towards the mountains, Niewiadoma-Phinney said the Tour would now “properly start.” Relieved to have the time trial behind her, she is eager to return to terrain that better suits her strengths.
“I was looking forward to this particular moment to be done with and focus on the climbs to come. Tomorrow is going to be a super hard stage. We’re here to be aggressive, we have a strong team, and we want to do our best. We’re in great shape, so what else can you do other than race your bike now?”
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