{"id":852104,"date":"2026-08-09T18:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T18:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/852104\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T18:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T18:50:10","slug":"i-just-want-to-sleep-for-a-week-elisa-longo-borghini-lands-tour-de-france-femmes-podium-on-final-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/852104\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I just want to sleep for a week’ – Elisa Longo Borghini lands Tour de France Femmes podium on final stage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team l’IMAD) finished the 2026 Tour de France Femmes<\/a> by moving onto the overall podium on the final stage in Nice on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The result came as a surprise to the Italian champion, who leapfrogged Marlen Reusser (Movistar) after the Swiss rider crashed<\/a> early in the 99.2-kilometre stage.<\/p>\n

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“I’m speechless – I have no words,” Longo Borghini said post-stage. “I really didn’t think I’d make it onto the podium after the fifth stage and after the time trial.”<\/p>\n

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Longo Borghini finished seventh on the stage after a late puncture, 1:14 behind the stage and race winner Demi Vollering (FDJ United-SUEZ) and second-placed Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-SRAM), but moved up the general classification because Reusser’s crash left her in the gruppetto, finishing 24:35 down on the yellow jersey.<\/p>\n

While she may have been able to challenge Reusser without the crash, Longo Borghini also had to keep an eye on Canyon-SRAM’s Antonia Niedermaier, who was 49 seconds behind her in the general classification.<\/p>\n

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“I told Paula that I was a bloc, but in my head it was a completely different story. On the tough climb, I managed not to lose too much to Demi and Kasia, and then I managed to get back onto Fisher-Black,” Longo Borghini said.<\/p>\n

“Then I tried to keep an eye on [Antonia] Niedermaier, who pulled all the way to the top of the climb, and I tried to make sure Antonia didn’t attack. We kept Niedermaier calm, and once we caught Kasia, we decided to go for the sprint for Paula.”<\/p>\n

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Blasi out-sprinted Niewiadoma-Phinney for second on the stage, while Longo Borghini finished off the back of the chase group, explaining, “In the end I got a flat tyre – because, of course, I couldn’t escape having a bit of rotten luck!”<\/p>\n

While Longo Borghini is a two-time winner of the Giro d’Italia, she hasn’t won a stage or finished on the podium of the Tour de France until today, and said she couldn’t believe the result.<\/p>\n

Longo Borghini seemed relieved to have overcome the regrets of the days she lost time – 1:03 to Vollering in the stage 4 time trial, and 1:43 the next day in Belleville-en-Beaujolais.<\/p>\n

“I just want to go home, see my family, get on the couch, and sleep for a week. Because over the last couple of days, I kept waking up at 3:00 AM thinking about the time trial, about Stage 5, about this, and about that…”<\/p>\n

Support our unrivalled coverage of the Tour de France Femmes and women’s cycling by subscribing to Cyclingnews. In return, you get unlimited access to high-quality journalism, with breaking news, race analysis, and expert insight from inside the women’s peloton. Plus, the Cyclingnews app lets you follow the action wherever you go! Join today.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team l’IMAD) finished the 2026 Tour de France Femmes by moving onto the overall…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":852105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-852104","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\/852104","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=852104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/852105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}