The Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift will hit the first trio of category 1 ascents – Petit Ballon, Col du Platzerwasel and Grand Ballon – that are set to make their mark on the overall classification.
Highly regarded as the queen stage 7 on Saturday, Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) said she was blown away by its difficulty, calling the route ‘cruel’, and where the yellow jersey could be all but sealed ahead of the finale on Sunday.
“It’s definitely super hard. I need to admit that after previewing the seventh stage, I was blown away, and blown away, not necessarily, in a good way,” Niewiadoma told Cyclingnews, who is currently third overall at 30 second behind overall leader Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma).
“I set myself thinking that I can do climbs that are around 20 minutes, because the longer they are, the less good I am. So, I was hoping that the climbs on stage 7 would be around 20 minutes but they are longer and steeper than I expected.
“I wasn’t really stoked about it. Thankfully, I had five or six weeks to work on those longer climbs. So, now I definitely feel more comfortable and confident ahead of that stage.
“It’s super hard. It’s the queen stage. It’s just very cruel, I feel.”
The 127.1km route between Sélestat and Le Markstein includes three challenging passes that begin with the Petit Ballon, a 9km ascent with an average gradient of 8.1%.
“In my opinion, the first climb is the hardest. When you do the hardest climb first and then you’re pretty much done, tired, and then you’re like, wow, there’s still two more to go,” Niewiadoma said.
“If Annemiek van Vleuten is having a good day, I wouldn’t be surprised if she attacks on the first climb of Petit Ballon. We have, as I said, a climb, Petit Ballon, then a short descent, and then another climb, Col du Platzerwasel. On just two climbs you can easily make up to five minutes, and then you jump down to the valley, you have like 10km and then you start climbing again.”
The middle climb, Col du Platzerwasel, is 7.1km and while it has an average gradient of 8.3% and it peaks at roughly the half-way mark of the stage. Niewiadoma said that it will be important to stay adequately fuelled during this stage.
“Fuelling-wise, it’s interesting because you climb for 30 minutes, and, you know, when you go hard, it’s always hard to fuel yourself because you’re just like, don’t focus on eating. I felt during this stage preview, how important it’s gonna be to just stay on top of everything in order…
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