UAE Team L’IMAD had plenty of reason to celebrate come the conclusion of the Tour de France Femmes in Nice, as the team finished the race with Elisa Longo Borghini on the podium, two more riders in the top 10, and the team prize to boot.
While the Tour had started with questions from the outside over their leadership strategy, their plan clearly paid off. Longo Borghini finished with a career-best third place after previous attempts were ended by illnesses and a pre-race crash. La Vuelta Femenina winner Paula Blasi raced to fifth in her debut Tour, while Dominika Włodarczyk, fourth last summer, finished seventh.
If there was ever any tension in the squad to begin with, there certainly wasn’t at the conclusion of the final stage.
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“Big result. We’re really, really proud of Elisa, proud of Paula, proud of Dominika, proud of Silvia – I mean all the girls,” team directeur sportif Cherie Pridham told Cyclingnews outside the team bus in Nice.
“It was just an incredible week that we had to manage. There was a lot of noise from the media, but to finish third on the podium, second on the stage podium today, and then win the team classification pretty much from the start – it’s a dream.
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“We said from the start that we just need to believe in the process. The road was always going to do the talking, but we kept our line, and the girls executed a professional job.”
The role of Paula Blasi, one of the breakthrough riders of the season following her Amstel Gold Race and Vuelta triumphs, was the centre of questions as the race kicked off in Lausanne. The Spaniard insisted she wasn’t a co-leader in France, but how could a rider of her ability be consigned to a support role?
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“I think cycling sometimes is like that. If you have a plan, even though maybe it may feel strange, you have to accept it and go for it,” Blasi told the assembled media at the finish.
“But even though I was like, ‘Oh, maybe I’m not really doing the right thing,’ you always try to trust in the team. Also, sometimes even if you have a clear leader, maybe she cannot have the best day, and things can change on the road, and you have to adapt a bit.
“So that’s what we did, but in the end, I think we had a clear tactic, and we proved that even though we can have any tactic, we just commit to it. That’s what we did, so I can say I’m pretty happy about it.”
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Blasi and Longo Borghini worked together on the race’s queen stage up Mont Ventoux, with the Italian surging to third on the stage and laying the base for a final weekend which would see her jump onto the podium.
After the stage, she admitted that the leadership talk had taken its toll on her, saying, “We’re cyclists, but we’re humans too, aren’t we? And it just became a massive ball of stress.”
Blasi said in Nice that she and the team managed to block things out and focus on the race and their own tactics.
“We all knew what was going on in the media, and we spoke about it. We were like, ‘We know all the blah blah blah around.’ But also, we are a team quite honest with everyone.
“We were like, ‘This is the tactic. We go for it, we commit, and then if in the climbs we have to change, we will change.’ “
‘I never stopped believing that I could stand on the podium in Nice’
Dominka Włodarczyk and Elisa Longo Borghini race towards top 10 GC finishes during the final stage in Nice (Image credit: Getty Images)
Longo Borghini admitted that UAE’s eventual triple leader strategy invited questions, but reiterated her earlier point that riders are all humans who are affected by such rumours and speculation.
“I think we showed that we raced well and smart. It was questionable, for sure, having three leaders, and I understand the journalists have to do their job and their work, and I respect that 100%. But sometimes there is too much speculation, and as I said, it hurts people because behind an athlete there is a person – a girl, a woman,” she said.
“We do suffer a little bit sometimes when we read some silly stuff, let’s say. Sometimes I just think we should think twice before writing things down.
“We showed that we could work very well today. In the end, Paula was working for me, and I was working for her until I punctured for the sprint, because she’s super fast and I wanted to give her a chance to be second in a stage in the Tour de France. We went all in, and we showed we were strong.”
Blasi took that chance and finished second in Nice as Vollering soloed home to take the second yellow jersey of her career.
Longo Borghini ended the day in seventh, a handful of seconds back after a late puncture, ready to celebrate third place – a result built on consistent racing – barring that single off day in the Jura on stage 5, and keeping the belief, even when she lay 2:20 off third place following Ventoux.
“I never stopped believing that I could stand on the podium in Nice, and I kept telling myself that the Tour would finish in Nice,” she said in the post-race press conference.
“I’ve been scratching seconds here and there every single day after the bad luck on the time trial and after Stage 5, and today it paid off. So, I still have to realise it, but I can say that I’m proud.”
Longo Borghini said the result was “definitely one of the highlights of my career so far”, the third place a “cherry on the cake” of nine hard days of racing.
She’d remain on the podium to celebrate with her full team, too, including the revelation of last year’s Tour, Maëva Squiban, who was more than happy to assume a domestique role when it brought such results.
“Our goal was to put one girl on the podium, and we did it. We also won the team classification,” Squiban told Cyclingnews.
“It’s nice because all the girls can be on the podium, not only the winner or the leader. Everyone was happy to be on the podium, including the sports directors. We’re happy with this Tour.”
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