Huge crowds lined the roads to Châtel and yet Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance-Soudal) couldn’t have been more alone. The Australian climber cut a lonely figure as she battled her way through the final stage of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, fighting with everything she had to maintain second on GC.
There was always a chance she’d slide down the standings on the final stage; that she'd be unable to stop her GC rivals putting time into her whenever the road tilted down. That’s precisely what happened.
With Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) up the road on a daring solo raid, Gigante had attacked twice from a small group of GC favourites on the Col de Joux Plane with more than 60 km to go.
“I was already feeling not so strong, physically, going up the Joux Plane,” she said later. “I was hoping to get away, to have a headstart for the downhill, but then, actually, I was pretty much getting dropped by the top.”
It would get worse from there.
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