‘The goal is to minimise the loss’ – Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney fully realistic about Tour de France Femmes time trial abilities

When an individual time trial was announced as part of the Tour de France Femmes route last autumn, some riders would have been rubbing their hands together with glee and others would have felt a wave of disappointment. Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-SRAM) was definitely in the latter category.

Despite being a Grand Tour winner, the race against the clock has never quite been Niewiadoma-Phinney’s favoured discipline. Whilst she can match all of her big rivals in the climbs, she can’t harness the power on the TT bike in the same way.

Ahead of the stage 4 effort to Dijon on Tuesday, Niewiadoma-Phinney was making no excuses or exaggerations about her hopes for the 21km effort.

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“It’s not a secret that I’m not a TT specialist, so personally for me the goal is to minimise the loss as much as possible,” she told Cyclingnews on Monday.

“I know I’m not going to be shining there, so basically the goal is to have as little time lost as possible.”

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With the 2km Lacets de Marsannay climb in the middle of the TT, it is in theory slightly more weighted towards the climbers than the pure power TT specialists, but it’s what comes after the winding climb that makes the stage particularly tricky.

“Normally I would say yes [you could gain time on the climb], but with the characteristic of this particular course, you have a downhill that requires you to still be on the pedals, it’s not that you’re just getting in position and cruising. You still need to have something left for the finish line and for the entire downhill, you don’t want to lose much time there,” Niewiadoma-Phinney explained.

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“I have no idea, I’m not a TT specialist. In some ways it sucks, but in some ways also it’s exciting to see what I can do.”

Just because it’s not her favourite discipline doesn’t mean Niewiadoma-Phinney hasn’t been putting the effort in to improve her TT, though, saying as early as the last World Championships that that was a key goal for her over the next couple of years. So there was no sense that she was overly worried about stage 4.

“Definitely I spent a fair amount of time on a TT bike. I know I have power, I also know I did not really have the right position, or I was not able to hold the position, so I think now I just need to stay calm and be fast,” she said.

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And though she knows that even her best effort may still see her lose time on many rivals, the TT isn’t where this race will be won, and there are still chances for a rider like her in the five stages after the TT.

“I think so,” she said when asked if she could take back any time lost. “Maybe not on Demi [Vollering], because of course she’s super strong, but with riders like Marlen [Reusser], I think that maybe we can find opportunities to gain time on her.”

As for the race in general, Niewiadoma-Phinney has so far avoided any drama, sitting comfortably in eighth on the same time as all the main GC contenders.

“So far, so good,” she said of the opening weekend.

“It’s not been a real smash happening for the GC contenders, it was a classic first two stages, quite hectic and nervous in the peloton, but still quite conservative riding for most of us.”

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