{"id":44964,"date":"2025-08-04T16:32:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T16:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/44964\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T16:32:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T16:32:08","slug":"this-might-be-my-biggest-smile-of-the-week-kopecky-glad-to-end-difficult-tour-de-france-femmes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/44964\/","title":{"rendered":"“This might be my biggest smile of the week” \u2013 Kopecky glad to end difficult Tour de France Femmes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lotte Kopecky<\/a>\u2019s 2025 Tour de
\nFrance Femmes never really got off the ground. Coming into the race with
\ngeneral classification ambitions, her plans were derailed by injury before the
\nstart, forcing a shift in focus to stage results. But even there, things didn\u2019t
\nfall into place, the opening day saw her lose significant time, and her best
\nfinish came on Stage 7 with an 11th place. For a rider who holds two world
\ntitles and multiple Monument victories, it was a disappointing outing.<\/p>\n

“I think she’s mainly glad
\nit’s over,” said Sporza commentator Ine Beyen. “The fact that she’s
\nstill attacking on Sunday proves that the team is still having fun. And I think
\nLotte is glad she didn’t abandon the Tour, because she knows she still needs it
\nfor everything that’s yet to come.”<\/p>\n

Despite the setbacks, Beyen
\npointed to some encouraging signs. “Lotte was increasingly showing herself
\nin the peloton; she proved she was still eager. On Sunday, two teammates, Van
\nder Breggen and Gerritse, escaped, and then you saw Kopecky’s playful side,
\neager to continue. That was great to see.” But Beyen\u2019s conclusion was
\nfirm: “The final conclusion is simple: she needs to focus on what she’s
\nreally good at from now on and not try to tick every box. Some boxes just can’t
\nbe ticked.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Kopecky herself seemed ready to
\nmove on, even managing a laugh when speaking to Sporza after the final stage.
\n“Sorry, this might be my biggest smile of the week,” she said.
\n“It was two very tough days, the kind we rarely encounter in women’s
\ncycling, but I had a pretty good feeling on Sunday. It’s just a shame I went
\ntoo far up the first climb and ended up in the wrong group. But it was the last
\nday, so I just kept riding.”<\/p>\n

Asked how relieved she was to
\nfinish, she didn\u2019t hold back. “How happy am I that this Tour is over? So
\nhappy,” she said with a burst of laughter. But she also found pride in the
\nteam\u2019s collective effort. “No, no, ultimately I’m happy that we were able
\nto make it a very nice Tour with the team. We collectively got the most out of
\nit, and we can be proud of that.”<\/p>\n

Before stepping away, Kopecky gave
\na nod to the overall winner, tossing flowers in the direction of Pauline
\nFerrand-Pr\u00e9vot. “This is very nice for her. She’s someone who can really
\nwork towards a goal, and she proved that once again. Honestly, I didn’t expect
\nit on the final day. I had pushed Gigante forward on the Col de la Madeleine,
\nbut when you ride them two or three minutes behind, you just silence
\neveryone,” she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lotte Kopecky\u2019s 2025 Tour de France Femmes never really got off the ground. Coming into the race with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-44964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}