Kasia Niewiadoma rolls through the narrow gap in the rope outside her Canyon-SRAM team bus, slams on the brakes, tilts her head back and laughs.
“Almost! Almost!” the 2024 Tour de France Femmes winner shouts, before providing a rapid fire debrief of Wednesday’s chaotic, thrilling stage into Belleville en-Beaujolais, a day when the narrative of the 2026 race suddenly became a lot clearer.
Mid-recap, Niewiadoma looks up the massive TV screen attached to the side of the Canyon-SRAM bus. It’s showing a replay of her audacious long-range sprint to the finish, which almost – almost – caught her follow attackers (and yellow jersey rivals) Demi Vollering and race leader Marlen Reusser napping.
The Polish star launched with around 400m to go (a move that surprised her young British teammate Zoe Bäckstedt when she arrived back at the bus) and looked to take her first ever Tour stage win. Until the ever-tenacious Vollering clawed her back, bit by bit, and pipped her at the line.
“I’m definitely happy that I gave my best, everything I had,” an upbeat Niewiadoma said as she warmed down on the turbo trainer.
“There are no regrets, nothing that I could have or should have done differently. Honestly, I’ve been losing sprints in my life so many times, so I was always working out a different scenario.
“I knew I just needed to go from the corner and maybe if there was a little bit more luck involved I would get it, but I’m still happy with how team rode. Having Antonia [Niedermaier] in the breakaway and then me in the final was almost perfect.”
Reflecting on the decision to sprint early, she said: “We did the recon of the stage, I knew that maybe I could try something different instead of just waiting for the last 200 metres and then get outsprinted.
“Everyone knows Demi is one of the fastest in the world, so you have to look for your opportunities elsewhere. I was like, I’ve got to believe. I’ve got to push all out.
“And I was just thinking that I cannot look up, I need to keep my head down. Because any time I sprint with my husband, he’s like, you’ve got to stay aero. So I was like, this is the only thing I do, being aero and trying to do my best.
”The whole day was like up and down plus the crazy heat, it was definitely not an easy day in the office. Then of course on the second last climb, I knew it was going to be all out and it was, it was not easy. But yeah, bike racing, right?”
Bike racing, indeed. That philosophical approach to Wednesday’s finale wasn’t exactly shared by yellow jersey Reusser, who despite defending her race lead with a dogged, determined ride on a punchy, explosive route, admits she did the “opposite of winning” on the approach to the finish.
“It’s a hard stage and I’m really happy how it went, except for the final, where I would say that I really didn’t do good,” the Movistar rider, who catapulted into the lead with a brilliant time trial in Dijon, said during her post-stage press conference.
“But for the rest, yes, I’m happy. Actually it went perfect for me because Kasia went. So I know we gamble now, and then Demi went behind her, and I was like, that’s perfect.
“But then, I don’t know, she moved to the right, and I went for a short moment on my brake, and my momentum was gone. I was asleep, I don’t know what I did. I’m really annoyed with myself.
“It’s super stupid, because I think I should be, and I am super happy about the day, and that I’m in yellow still. But it’s a Tour stage win. I mean, I’m not saying that I would have won, but I did the opposite of winning.”
For Vollering, however, everything turned out perfectly.
“We started on the small roads, and then there was a crash again in front of me, and I needed to get off the bike again, so it was a bit annoying. But then Celia did a really good job to bring me all the way back to the front. And from there on, it was just focus, and everything went perfect,” the 2023 Tour winner said.
“I’m done, let’s just race!”
According to Vollering, after a few days of phoney war at the start of the race, the difficult route allowed her to finally race aggressively.
“Yesterday I said in the meeting, ‘I’m just done, let’s just race!’ Because stages two and three were sometimes a bit boring, sometimes a bit slow, a lot of waiting,” the FDJ United-Suez rider said.
“Nobody really wanted to race from my feeling. Maybe because of the heat, everybody was a bit scared. And during stage three, maybe everybody was thinking already of the TT.
“I was just ready to race, because that’s the mindset I had coming into this Tour to go full gas every day and not to hesitate to make the race colourful.
“In the beginning of the race, my teammates suffered a bit from the heat and maybe after altitude to find their legs. But today was the day when everybody was on form again, so we could really race and also really enjoy it as a whole team.
“Luckily we could do how we planned today and I love just to go full for it the most, no regrets afterwards – it’s why we love racing, just to try and go for wins.”
That outbreak of all-out racing succeeded in cementing the narrative of this year’s race, which now looks set to be a three-way battle for yellow between Reusser and the two former winners Vollering and Niewiadoma.
With Friday’s much-anticipated stage to Mont Ventoux and an explosive finale in Nice to come, Reusser’s lead at the top over Vollering has been cut to just 12 seconds, while Niewiadoma sits 1.17 behind, in striking distance.
“I think Kasia is in really good form. Also, this kind of race really suits her, of course, with the shorter climbs,” Vollering noted.
“But also Marlen, she is in great form. She showed yesterday in the time trial, of course, but also the way she managed to do these climbs. I’m not surprised because she’s a very strong rider, and I think it will be very hard to get rid of her, but I’ll try for sure.”
“I think Demi was brave too. She kept trying,” added Reusser. “I think you need courage to do that. Also I’m impressed by Kasia, she really took it into her hands. I think she had a good shot there, she tried in a good way.
“I’m happy. I hoped for this. I really felt good the last days and I also was like thinking that this is possible but always you don’t know before really I also didn’t know so I’m of course happy that it went like this, yes.
“Everything can be upside down in Nice”
road.cc asked both Reusser and Niewiadoma whether their ability to match a clearly in-form Vollering on the first true GC day of the race gave them confidence ahead of the crucial stages to come.
“I felt already before today that I didn’t feel bad. And now I feel the same. And I know every day is difficult, maybe somebody has a super good day, somebody has a bad day,” the yellow jersey said
“I don’t think that now I’m confident or not confident. You can imagine if you go in a race, you don’t know yourself how you’re going to feel that day.
“Okay, maybe you’re blessed and you know, ‘I fly today’, but I don’t expect this to happen. So normally you start a race and you are also curious and nervous and you ask yourself questions, so let’s see.”
Niewiadoma, meanwhile, is careful to take the Tour “day by day, see how the recovery goes and what can we get from the stage”.
“Of course, the Tour is a very special and important race for us, for our team, so we always aim for the best result possible,” she told road.cc.
“I definitely dream of winning the jersey again. That’s the main goal and whatever comes, as long as we do our best, you know then it’s all good. We came here to fight and we’ve shown so far that we’re fighting. So hopefully we will celebrate big on Sunday.
“You have to be confident in general to fight for victory. It definitely adds positivity to the mood and that helps for the next stages. But we don’t take anything for granted yet, because everything can be upside down in Nice.”
Of course, one of the big shocks from this year’s race so far is the collapse of French hero Pauline Ferrand-Prévot’s Tour defence, the Visma-Lease a Bike rider now sitting in 17th place overall, five minutes down on Reusser – news that came as a surprise even to the yellow jersey.
Informed about the substantial advantage she now has over last year’s winner, Reusser puffed out her cheeks and said: “Yeah, that’s harder. Five minutes is… I mean, you never say never, but to get five minutes back is hard. I wouldn’t wish for me to have to take back five minutes, it’s hard.”
Vollering, however, is careful not to rule out her French rival just yet.
“Yes, but also today is really like Liège–Bastogne–Liège, and it was a big gap there too [Vollering won this year’s edition of the one-day classic, with Ferrand-Prévot finishing over five minutes down]. It’s a race where you cannot hide and where you really need a team around you to fight as well. And I still think everything can happen.
“I mean, the Ventoux, it’s a very, very hard climb. And last year on the Col de Madeleine, she took, I don’t know, three minutes or more on us. We don’t know what she’s capable of on a long climb. It’s just a different effort.”
“I felt like there was no time to be looking around. In my head, I was like, I just need to drink, eat, and be prepared for the next climb,” Niewiadoma said, when asked about the French star’s early collapse.
“When we got the breakaway and Movistar and FDJ carried on riding, I was like, oh, I wonder if Pauline is here. And she wasn’t. That’s when I realised that the damage was done.”
She continued: “The Tour is very specific. It’s always had different winners. It’s really hard to defend it, whether it comes from people expecting you to do the same and like weird pressure. It’s not an easy one to prepare for.
“I don’t know what’s going on with her or how her preparation went, but each year you have to invest more and more in order to be able to fight for the podium.”
Asked by road.cc whether Ferrand-Prévot dropping out of contention changed things for Canyon-SRAM, the Polish rider said: “Honestly, we don’t really focus on our competition. We just do our thing and then correct situations or plan situations on the road. The more you focus on others, the lower your self-esteem is, so we definitely don’t do that.
“Each Tour is just different and we also forget about what happened. I just know that before the last stage each year I was just very stressed because anything could have changed. So it’s going to be the same this year.
“I know that maybe Mont Ventoux will create bigger gaps, but then the Nice stages are so hard and anything can happen there. It’s not like we just have a friendly stage in Paris.”
Vollering, meanwhile, is also staying cautious ahead of the upcoming four tough stages until Nice.
“I would like to dream of a yellow, of course, but we’re not there yet. I cannot dream too big yet. I need to be focused and tackle every day as a one-day stage race. And then we’ll see in Nice how it ends up,” she said.
Asked about the stifling heat and its impact on the race, an emotional Vollering evoked some words of wisdom from her father.
“To be honest, I don’t really like the heat, but it’s funny because yesterday I saw my dad before the time trial,” she said.
“It was a long time since I last saw him. He has a special mentality because he grows flowers, of course. So I saw him and I was like, ‘wow, it’s hot today’. And he was like, ‘oh, no. You know where it’s hot? In the greenhouse. It’s 40 degrees there and we work every day very hard there. So think about that. You also have done that’.
“So it was quite funny to see him for a time trial and he made me realise where I come from. Suffering is part of it, and that you need to embrace that.”
Reusser was also philosophical when questioned about her first day in yellow.
“I wouldn’t say it hasn’t changed me anyhow. But in the morning they give you this suit, and then you put the suit on in the bus and you come out and the team is like, ‘my God’. And then they go full gas and you feel the magic of the yellow,” she said.
“It’s a beautiful moment. And it’s impressive how many people are here, on the sides of the roads, all the little villages in between in the start and finish areas, it’s so cool. And of course you can feel that, even in Pauline land.
“There is no pressure. I will do whatever I can to keep that yellow. My team are doing wonderful, really, really wonderful. And as well as doing super good in the race, they are just super nice teammates.
“When I chose my new team, after leaving SD Worx, this was my main priority. I said, I’d rather have 10 people with no legs – that’s not the case – but I’d rather have 10 people with no legs, but who give me a nice feeling and we have a nice time.
“Because in the end we spend years and days and months together and I want to have a nice life. I don’t do this just to win, it because I want to spend time here that is worth living.”
