“You’re the strongest. I believe in you, you’re the queen”: How Kasia Niewiadoma pulled off the greatest ride in Tour de France Femmes history on Mont Ventoux

As Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney battled her way towards Mont Ventoux’s exposed, rocky summit, the voice of her Canyon-SRAM teammate Antonia Niedermaier cracked over her race radio: “Kasia, you’re the strongest. I believe in you, you’re the queen.”

Niedermaier wasn’t wrong. A gust of wind may have blown over a long line of race barriers in the final 400m, just after the top ten had passed, forcing the Tour’s organisation team into a panicked retrieval mission, as they rushed to clear the road. But the strongest force on Mont Ventoux on Friday afternoon was certainly Niewiadoma.

The Polish star, 1.17 adrift of race leader Marlen Reusser at the start of the day, grabbed the Tour de France Femmes by the scruff of the neck on the race’s most-feared climb. The 2024 Tour Femmes winner attacked with 9km to go, taking advantage of the Ventoux’s relentlessly steep section through the trees, before it opens out and the gradient eases slightly after Chalet Reynard.

Niewiadoma built up a quick lead of around 30 seconds over her podium rivals Reusser and Demi Vollering. This lead then dropped to just five seconds before a combination of tactical deadlock and suspicion behind and a concerted reacceleration from Niewiadoma saw the Canyon-SRAM rider’s gap balloon. And fast.

By the finish beside Ventoux’s white phone tower, Niewiadoma had put 1.16 into Vollering and a further 30 seconds clear of Reusser, catapulting her into the yellow jersey ahead of Sunday’s decisive stage around Nice.

Niewiadoma rarely wins – her Ventoux triumph is her first victory outside the Polish national championships since her overall win at the Tour in 2024, while it was also her first stage victory at any race since the Women’s Tour of Britain in 2019.

But when she wins, she wins big. Her race-saving ride on Alpe d’Huez at the 2024 Tour may have been more dramatic, but the 31-year-old’s long-range Ventoux attack was inarguably much more impressive, a ride that could go down as one of the most stunning exploits in the history of women’s cycling.

According to her numbers on Strava, Niewiadoma climbed the 15.5km beast (in reality, the Ventoux starts five kilometres back down the road) in 55.20, averaging 5.3w/kg for the duration of the climb. The steep section up to Chalet Reynard, during which she launched her attack, took her 32.09, with her power output slightly higher at 5.4w/kg.

Those numbers are higher than those produced by Pauline Ferrand-Prévot during her race-winning move on the Col de la Madeleine last year, the Frenchwoman averaging 5.04w/kg during her 64-minute ascent.

“I knew I had to go away before 6ks to go because then it was kind of not flat, but less steep,” Niewiadoma told reporters, including road.cc, at the top of Ventoux.

“And I knew that if I had a gap there, then in the back they would gamble because we had a headwind. Nobody wants to ride in a headwind, so that worked out perfectly. When I heard it was a one-minute gap I knew I was going to win. It was not perfect with this wind, and the steeper it is, the better it is for me. So I knew with the wind and the lesser gradients, I had to be small and just maintain the gap.”

Asked whether she thought Vollering and Reusser underestimated her by not closing the gap when they had the chance, the new yellow jersey said: “I don’t think they underestimated me but I think they played a game with each other, over who’s going to do the chasing.”

She continued: “With this victory, I can motivate a lot of people, not only in sport, but in life too. Always keep pushing and believing, because people might say you’re not up there, but as long as you believe, you can achieve marvellous things and anything is possible.

“This win is like I’ve paid back more of the second and third places I got in my life.”

For Niewiadoma’s Canyon-SRAM teammate Niedermaier, who’s sitting in fifth place and leading the young riders’ classification, the Ventoux victory was simply a culmination of the work her leader’s put in this year.

“I’m not surprised at all she was able to do that. I told her at the start of the week that she was the strongest, and I really had no doubt she could win it,” the 23-year-old German said.

“For Kasia, she prepared so well for this race. She wanted to attack early where it was steep, and obviously it worked well. The wind had an impact, but if you have a gap, it’s harder to close it.

“She showed she can really win the Tour. Sure, it’s a long way to go to Nice, but we all believe in her.”

“They’re often looking at each other, sometimes they’re not really paying attention to what Kasia is doing. I also think she is just super strong at the Tour this year. I don’t know if they could have kept up with her.”

Asked by road.cc about the how Canyon-SRAM will approach the rest of the race now they have yellow, Niedermaier said: “Sunday’s going to be super hard and we have to be really careful with the groups that are attacking. But we will see.”