{"id":3813,"date":"2025-07-18T18:29:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T18:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/3813\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T18:29:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T18:29:08","slug":"my-2024-victory-will-stay-with-me-forever-but-i-dont-feel-accomplished-yet-kasia-niewiadoma-phinney-prepares-to-defend-tour-de-france-femmes-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/3813\/","title":{"rendered":"‘[My] 2024 victory will stay with me forever, but I don\u2019t feel accomplished yet’ \u2014 Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney prepares to defend Tour de France Femmes title"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the 2025 edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift<\/a> looms just one week away, defending champion Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney<\/a> is chasing more than a second yellow jersey, she\u2019s seeking fulfillment.<\/p>\n

Twelve months after capturing the iconic maillot jaune<\/a> in one of the most dramatic Tour de France finales yet<\/a>, Niewiadoma-Phinney returns with her sights set on repeating history. Yet, in her own words, she\u2019s not riding to prove herself to others. She\u2019s riding to prove to herself that she can do it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 2024 victory will stay with me forever, but I don\u2019t feel like I\u2019m accomplished for my career,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSeeing [Elisa] Longo Borghini defending her pink jersey<\/a> [at the Giro d\u2019Italia Women] definitely gave me extra motivation and faith to be like \u2018we can do it as well\u2019,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The 2024 women\u2019s Tour came down to just four short seconds \u2014the smallest margin of victory in Tour de France history<\/a>\u2014 after seven days of racing, covering 950 kilometers and 13,566 meters of elevation. Niewiadoma-Phinney edged out Demi Vollering<\/a> in a nail-biting finale on Alpe d\u2019Huez<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But as the women\u2019s peloton now heads to Bretagne<\/a>, the Polish rider, racing under her married name after tying the knot with former pro Taylor Phinney, faces perhaps her toughest field yet, as transfer season saw various teams bolstered with new leaders.<\/p>\n

Former Tour winner and last year\u2019s runner-up, Demi Vollering, now leads the FDJ-Suez team, where talented climbers like Evita Muzic and Juliette Labous will be riding in her service. Her former team, SD Worx-Protime, brings multiple GC cards in Anna van der Breggen and Lotte Kopecky<\/a>. Then, there\u2019s also Marlen Reusser, now taking the lead at Movistar, and GC-contenders Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance\u2013Soudal) and Elisa Longho Borgini (UAE Team ADQ) are coming off strong showings at the Giro.<\/p>\n

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Still, Niewiadoma-Phinney insists she\u2019s not thinking about her rivals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m coming to this race not focusing on others. I get asked all the time about the other riders but I really don\u2019t care about them. I do care about my own performance and that of my teammates, so for the upcoming race, all I want to do is make sure that each of us feel perfectly prepared, not only physically but also mentally \u2013 just ready for the yellow jersey fight,\u201d she commented.<\/p>\n

Niewiadoma-Phinney acknowledged that \u201cyou\u2019re only as good as your last race\u201d and that\u2019s where there may be some question marks. Yes, she won the Polish National Road Racing championships in June, her last race, but she\u2019s been absent from the WorldTour podium this season so far.<\/p>\n

After a fourth place at Ronde van Vlaanderen and La Fl\u00e8che Wallonne F\u00e9minine, she missed out on the top 10 at the Vuelta Espa\u00f1a Femenina. It wasn\u2019t until the Tour de Suisse Women that she signaled her return to form, with two stage podiums and third overall in the GC.<\/p>\n

Is this just a case of peaking at the perfect moment? The 30-year-old certainly seems confident in her build-up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to seeing how I will be performing because I really put a lot of hard work into this race. You never know how everyone else is, but I\u2019m just excited to see where everything that we did, especially on training camp, will put us,\u201d she said. \u201cI just want to let my legs talk once we race.\u201d<\/p>\n

She seems to be handling the pressure of a title defense with composure as well, stating:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m feeling at ease that I\u2019ve already won this race and don\u2019t feel like I\u2019m desperate, but I truly just want to defend it. I want to get another yellow jersey and enjoy the moment again, but yeah I\u2019m not like obsessed.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, Niewiadoma-Phinney will be joined by a stacked roster, including former Tour stage winners Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig and Ricarda Bauernfeind, climbing talent Neve Bradbury and Soraya Paladin, time-trail specialists Chlo\u00e9 Dygert <\/a>and Agnieszka Skalniak-S\u00f3jka.<\/p>\n

“Winning a stage was just\u2026 I mean, I still get goosebumps thinking about it,\u201d said Ludwig. \u201cNow, being part of the team defending the yellow jersey? That\u2019s a whole new level. It\u2019s both exciting and humbling. There\u2019s pressure, of course – but it\u2019s the kind of pressure you want as a rider. I can\u2019t wait to work toward a common goal – trying to win the TDFFAZ for the second year in a row. It\u2019s a huge challenge, but we\u2019re ready to give it everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Niwiadoma-Phinney\u2019s title defence starts on July 26 in Vannes<\/a>. From here, the Tour cuts a diagonal line through the centre of France, from coastal Bretagne to the ski resort of Ch\u00e2tel les Portes du Solei on the Swiss border. At 1168.6 kilometres and with over 18,000 meters of climbing across nine days, this is the race\u2019s longest and most mountainous edition yet.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll find coverage of all the action right here on cyclingweekly.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the 2025 edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift looms just one week away, defending…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":["post-3813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}