CANYON//SRAM Racing finished its 2023 road season in glittering style with a double podium after the final stage of the Tour de Romandie on Sunday 17th in Vernier, Switzerland. Kasia Niewiadoma secured second in the general classification, while teammate Ricarda Bauernfeind finished sixth overall and successfully won the Best Young Rider classification. Niewiadoma was also awarded the Super Combativity Prize.
A challenging 132km parcours outside Geneva provided the peloton with countless opportunities to attack. CANYON//SRAM Racing rode aggressively, with Neve Bradbury and Elise Chabbey in the first moves of the day. Chabbey, Bauernfeind, Niewiadoma and Antonia Niedermaier all attacked in the second half of the race as the finale approached, piling on the pressure to take the stage win and change the GC standings. Bauernfeind tried a late move with just 12km remaining and built a lead to 15 seconds as the peloton desperately chased. When Bauernfeind was caught, young Niedermaier rode brilliantly to control all the moves, keeping Niewiadoma in contention for the bonus seconds on the line and helping Bauernfeind move into the white jersey.
The sprint finish in the stage was won by Lianne Lippert (MOV) from a pack of 25 riders, with Niewiadoma taking seventh place. Niewiadoma finished second on GC at seconds from Demi Vollering. Bauernfeind’s sixth place overall at +1:16 marked an impressive fourth time that the young CANYON//SRAM Racing rider has been inside the top ten in World Tour stage races in 2023. It was also enough for her to win the Best Young Rider classification.
Kasia Niewiadoma said after the race, “We had such a fun race today, and we’re beyond happy to finish on the podium in the GC and secure the white jersey with Ricarda! We showed team spirit in today’s stage and commitment to a common goal. We still made mistakes, but we tried to correct the situation in our favour.
I’m happy with my shape to finish on the podium. I learnt a lot, together with my coach this season, how much we can push and how much we have to rest. I’ll take the learnings of when I was in good shape, how long I could hold it, and when I was too cautious.
Overall, I’m not sad that the season is ending. It would be good to have more opportunities for our team for me to win, but I’m also looking forward to some proper rest and disconnection from the cycling world.”
Ricarda Bauernfeind added, “The stage was quite hard for us as a team, because first we had to chase the group with Elise, as it had some important GC contenders. Our main goal was to improve Kasia’s GC podium or, if not, move up, then save the second place.
After the climbs were all done, we were still a small bunch, so we decided to go for attacks. Last evening we talked about finding the right moment for an attack, so I had this in my mind and tried to execute it with around 12km to go. We also wanted to keep the pace high, because we knew that Fisher-Black was dropped, and I had a chance to move into the young rider jersey.
Finishing again in the top 10 in the GC in a stage race gives me a lot of confidence and shows what type of rider I am. Of course, it motivates me even more to work during winter on my weaknesses. Winning the young rider classification at this race is a really nice way to finish the great teamwork we showed this weekend!”
