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If we apply the phrase all’s effectively that ends effectively to Kasia Niewiadoma’s 2023 season, it will be honest to say this 12 months has been tremendous for the Canyon-SRAM rider. Her outcomes have given a agency springboard to overtake her rivals in 2024.
Within the first half of her season she was not firing on all cylinders, having been considerably conservative in her winter coaching. By her personal admission, it’s not at all times simple for Niewiadoma to seek out the candy spot of being finely tuned sufficient to realize persistently sturdy outcomes via the primary half of the season, dominated by the Classics.
Issues had begun tentatively, with a twenty fourth place on the Classics season opener Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, sixth at Strade Bianche, a goal race for her through which she has been a runner-up a number of occasions previously, and fifteenth at Trofeo Alfredo Binda, which she received in 2018.
“It’s at all times difficult to truly know the best way to put together your self for the Classics so that you just don’t overdo it, however you could have sufficient to maintain your efficiency from Strade Bianche initially of March to Liège [Bastogne-Liège] on the finish of April. I believe, with my coach we have been a bit too delicate with the coaching as a result of with each week I might really feel I used to be getting stronger and by the point I used to be stepping into good condition the Classics had completed!”
Niewiadoma had climbed up the outcomes sheet by the Tour of Flanders and Amstel Gold, taking fifth and fourth, however It wasn’t till Itzulia in Could, that the 29-year-old bought her second on the rostrum. Although her finest outcomes got here throughout the Tour de France Femmes in July, the place she completed in third place on GC and received the Queen of the Mountains competitors, after her sturdy efficiency within the fog on the slopes of the Col du Tourmalet.
Niewiadoma recollects the stage the place she got here second to general winner, Demi Vollering, fondly:
“On the Col d’Aspin when Annemiek [Van Vleuten] attacked I used to be ready to stick with her – not solely to hold on, however I felt like I might keep it up, and that undoubtedly gave me confidence. I used to be completely happy that I used to be in a position to keep away and the bunch by no means caught me, apart from Demi.
“I used to be undoubtedly proud of the Tour de France Femmes, particularly with that exact stage. A whole lot of the time I might be dropped from Annemiek [Van Vleuten] when she put in an assault. So I labored on it in Andorra earlier than the Tour de France Femmes, simulating her assaults or the way in which that she would experience and drop me, and the arduous work paid off.”
From World Championships disappointment to elation
Sickness put Niewiadoma out of the World Championships in Glasgow, and after restoration she continued her sturdy type with a second place general on the Tour of Romandie, rapidly adopted by her donning the rainbow jersey on the Gravel World Championships, and her first win in 4 years. She adopted that with a last season victory at Huge Sugar Gravel within the US.
Granted, this had not been a selected goal for Niewiadoma, however a win is a win. Coming into the occasion, her first-ever gravel race, she had stored an open thoughts, and handled it like a Classics race given the variety of roadies that have been on the beginning listing.
Not solely might she draw on her late season energy, but in addition took confidence from feedback made by her accomplice, former racer Taylor Phinney, and by EF Schooling-EasyPost’s Lachlan Morton with whom she had finished off-road rides. She had acquired good technical expertise, and so they each believed she might smash it in a gravel race.
Nonetheless, changing all her energy and expertise into one thing significant on the day was one other matter, and arriving firstly line was nonetheless a nerve-racking expertise, at the same time as one of many stronger riders within the discipline.
Niewiadoma remembers, “The course seemed very arduous, and earlier than the race I used to be telling my accomplice that I didn’t wish to race it. It was simply terrifying, with all these large climbs.”
Fortunately as soon as the race started, she discovered her good legs and was in a position to put in that trade-mark gutsy racing that she is thought for since bursting onto the skilled scene in 2014.
The 2021 World Street Race bronze-medallist already had type on gravel roads in Italy, having been the runner-up at Strade Bianche on three events. Nonetheless, a gravel biking race could be a special ball sport, as Niewiadoma explains:
“It’s like nothing I’ve ever finished earlier than. You go arduous from the beginning and there may be little or no component of driving in a peloton. It felt like we have been all doing a time trial, with a steep climb within the last. The factor that gave me confidence was understanding that different folks behind have been struggling too!”
Again to the paved roads
As for the upcoming 2024 season, the newly-crowned Gravel World Champion has already taken learnings from this season and is optimistic about her strategy for subsequent 12 months.
“With my coach, after each Classics race, we have been taking notes and ideas and I actually hope I can use that within the subsequent season. For the Tour de France Femmes, what I would like to enhance can be my longer climb capacity, so when Demi [Vollering] goes, I can go along with her and may compete within the last kilometres as a result of this 12 months she was undoubtedly a stage above me. The best way she handed me on Tourmalet that day was actually outstanding.
Niewiadoma has already nailed her colors to the 2024 season mast when it comes to what she can be focusing on: Strade Bianche and the Ardennes Classics.
And what a few win on Alpe d’Huez? The 2023 Tour de France Femmes polka dot jersey winner is extra circumspect.
“Effectively, I’ll undoubtedly be doing a recon of Alpe d’Huez. I’ll attempt to make it as pleasurable as potential, however they are going to be arduous periods.”
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