spoiler
Kasia Niewiadoma won the 2024 women’s Tour de France by four seconds, the narrowest margin in the history of either the women’s or men’s race, clinging on to the yellow jersey, despite an Alpine assault from the defending champion, Demi Vollering.
On Saturday afternoon, a defiant Niewiadoma had said: “I lost four seconds, so that’s nothing,” after Vollering had picked up that much via time bonus. Twenty-four hours later, though, for the Pole and her Canyon-SRAM team, four precious seconds at the top of Alpe d’Huez meant everything.
“Four seconds seem to be magical now,” she said. “Throughout my whole career there were so many times I missed out on victories. I feel like this week was perfect for me and my team. To be able to win big races, you need everything on your side.”
Wild finish. So many variables it made my head spin. Huge chapeau to all the athletes for making such a great race. But commiserations to Demi, being so clearly the strongest but not winning must be galling.
Yeah, it’s gutting for her. The race was SD Worx’s to lose, but since she’s leaving, I don’t think they cared about her result. And they proceeded to screw her over 5 different ways. They didn’t ride for her until the last stage, blithely assuming they’d pull out the win anyway, and ignoring how much better the competition had become. (And on the last stage, none of the team ended up being to help her anyway and she had to do it all on her own.) I’m sorry for Vollering, who seemed to have poured everything into the race, and deeply unimpressed with the team, which spent more efforts trying to get intermediate sprint points for Wiebes after she already lost the green jersey. Vollering is probably counting the days until she can leave that team.
I’m quite happy for Niewiadoma, though, she’s stepped up in a huge way. Just a few months ago we talked about how she hadn’t won a race in four years, and then she just really came into form after her Gravel Worlds win, Fleche Wallone, etc. And unlike SD Worx, her team RODE for her. Canyon-SRAM was all-in on Kasia, and they made it possible. It’s nice to have a different team win, too, it’s probably good for the sport in general.
I was really impressed by Rooijakkers, I under-estimated her even a few days ago, I really didn’t see her as a podium threat, and boy, was I wrong. It was incredibly exciting to have a three-woman race for the win on the last stage, coming down to a handful of seconds! That’s so rare and so wild.
While we’re shouting out performances, I was really impressed with AG Insurance-Soudal, that polka-dot jersey for Justine Ghekiere was a true team effort, and the stage win on Stage 6 was icing on the cake. Take notes, SD Worx, that’s what it looks like when the team is working together.