{"id":41661,"date":"2025-08-04T01:15:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T01:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/41661\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T01:15:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T01:15:08","slug":"we-went-for-a-statement-niamh-fisher-black-flies-off-the-front-at-tour-de-france-femmes-to-take-third-on-col-de-la-madeleine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/41661\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;We went for a statement&#8217; \u2013 Niamh Fisher-Black flies off the front at Tour de France Femmes to take third on Col de la Madeleine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/riders\/niamh-fisher-black\/\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/riders\/niamh-fisher-black\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Niamh Fisher-Black<\/a> has fallen some way down the GC ranks through the opening seven stages, but there was a big prize still on offer, the queen stage of the 2025 <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/tour-de-france-femmes\/\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/tour-de-france-femmes\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tour de France Femmes<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It was the stage that put a spark in the eye and grin on the face when we spoke to Fisher-Black earlier in the race, with reason. This was a day for the serious climbers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\u201cWe hoped to be a little bit on the offensive and try something for the last climb, but it actually ended up happening a lot earlier than I expected, anyway,\u201d said Fisher-Black. Riejanne [Markus] was off the road, and I saw an opportunity to jump to her on the first climb. So I did. Then we had a really good group, and it was really perfect scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>You may like<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">The rider from New Zealand who moved to Lidl-Trek from SD Worx-Protime at the start of this season was part of a group of around 15 riders that included \u00c9vita Muzic (FDJ-SUEZ), Yara Kastelijn (Fenix-Deceuninck) and Magdeleine Vallieres Mill (EF Education-Oatly), as well as Fisher-Black\u2019s teammate Markus.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">The group ebbed and flowed through the 111.9km stage, which started in Chamb\u00e9ry and finished in Saint-Fran\u00e7ois-Longchamp atop the hors cat\u00e9gorie-ranked Col de Madeleine (18.6km at 8.1%). Ultimately, though, it was Fisher-Black who launched from the break.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">&#8220;They let us go with the big time gap, and Riejanne could do most of the work for me, which was really nice,&#8221; said Fisher-Black. &#8220;And then it was my job to try something on the Madeleine, and yeah, maybe I left it a bit far into the climb, but then, then I went my pace and I just tried to pace it as best as I could.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">There was a charged GC battle on behind, with Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance-Soudal) launching and <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/races\/tour-de-france-femmes-2025\/stage-9\/preview\/\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/races\/tour-de-france-femmes-2025\/stage-9\/preview\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot (Visma-Lease a Bike) then stamping her authority on the stage and race<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"newsletter-form__strapline\">The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">&#8220;Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot came from behind, pretty strong, so, yeah, I did what I could, but we went for a statement today, and I&#8217;m happy with how we tried,&#8221; concluded Fisher-Black.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Trying got her onto the podium, with both Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot and Gigante catching the rider from New Zealand, but no one else, with Fisher-Black holding off a charging Demi Vollering (FDJ-SUEZ) with a gap of 48 seconds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Fisher-Black&#8217;s efforts not only put her on the podium but also moved her up five spots in the overall, to eighth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our Tour de France Femmes coverage. Don&#8217;t miss any of the breaking news, reports, and analysis from one of the biggest women&#8217;s stage races of the season. <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/sub24\/?utm_source=Referral+link&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_campaign=TDFF25\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/sub24\/?utm_source=Referral+link&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_campaign=TDFF25\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Find out more<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Niamh Fisher-Black has fallen some way down the GC ranks through the opening seven stages, but there was&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":["post-41661","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\/41661","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=41661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}