Kasia Niewiadoma targets second Tour de France Femmes title and Milan-San Remo glory - 'I want to go for the yellow'
Published 19/11/2024 at 18:45 GMT
Kasia Niewiadoma has outlined some of her targets for the 2025 cycling season. The 30-year-old Pole will be looking to defend her Tour de France Femmes title, but is also hoping to make a return to the Gravel World Championships, having won the event in 2023. Taking part in the Paris–Roubaix seems unlikely though, because her team think the event is "too dangerous".
Tears flow as Niewiadoma discovers she has won Tour de France Femmes
Video credit: TNT Sports
Kasia Niewiadoma believes she will be in the mix for another Tour de France Femmes title next year, as she set out her goals for 2025 in an interview with Eurosport.
The 30-year-old won her first yellow jersey in 2024 as she finished first in the general classification, just four seconds ahead of Demi Vollering.
The route for the 2025 edition of the race has recently been unveiled, with four of the nine stages in the hills and a further three in the mountains.
It will start in Vannes on July 26 and finish in Chatel less than two weeks later.
Niewiadoma told Eurosport that many competitors will think they have a chance of coming top of the pile.
"I think that the next edition suits all of the riders," she said. "I wouldn't say that it's going to be an open race, because it's going to be very hard.
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"I can see a lot of contenders for the yellow jersey, me included. I definitely feel like I want to go for the yellow again."
Winning the Tour de France Femmes this year was a huge achievement for Niewiadoma, and it was the crowning moment of a glorious season.
In the months leading up to the race, she had finished second in the Tour of Flanders and won La Fleche Wallonne Feminine.
But the Canyon–SRAM rider has big ambitions for 2025.
"In some ways, I want to have a big spring campaign," she said. "I would want to race every week.
"I would want to do the Italian Classics, move to Belgium, race there, and then refocus on the Tour de France.
"I'm not sure if my team would be too happy on me doing the Paris–Roubaix, because they always say that it's too dangerous, but I would love to do it. It's a sick race!"
Niewiadoma is also keen to make a return to the Gravel World Championships next year.
She won the title in 2023, but decided against defending it 12 months later for fear of burnout.
Niewiadoma added: "I heard that the Gravel World Championships will be in Nice, I'm not sure, but probably it's going to be really hard.
"This year, I was so burnt towards the end, so I decided to call it quits there.
"I love gravelling to be honest. For the most part, since I finished the road season, I was only riding my gravel bike, because I feel like it gives you a wider or broader way of training, which I like.
"I hope that in the future I will have more time to squeeze gravel racing into my schedule, but we just have a lot of road racing, every week, so it's hard."
The Milan-San Remo race, of which there will be a women's edition for the first time in 2025, is also in Niewiadoma's sights.
"Yes, I want to do it," she added. "Just like Lizzie Deignan, the first one to win Paris-Roubaix, I want to be the first woman to win Milan-San Remo."
When mentioning Deignan, Niewiadoma's eyes lit up.
The Brit has enjoyed a sensational career, winning a world title in 2015, a London 2012 Olympics silver medal and a Commonwealth gold in Glasgow two years later.
But the 35-year-old has announced she will retire from the saddle at the end of next season.
Niewiadoma paid tribute to Deignan, saying: "She brought a lot. I definitely am looking up to her. Every single season I have been, since I started riding professionally.
"I love how she represents athletes who are strong and powerful, that are loving and have family, that have clear goals. Just the way she lives as an athlete is very inspiring to me.
"Every time I find myself losing, maybe not my concentration, but my pursuit of the goal, I think of her, or Anna van der Breggen or Ellen van Dijk. I think they're pioneer cyclists for all of us."
Stream the 2025 cycling season, including the Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes, live on discovery+
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