FREE CLIMBING

Kasia Niewiadoma tells Owen Rogers about how she's found balance in the heart of the WorldTour peloton and how she'll capture that elusive Strade Bianche win.

- Owen Rogers

Despite two years passing since the most recent edition of the Amstel Gold Race, the day still sticks in the memory.

Yes, there was Mathieu van der Poel’s breathless, jaw-dropping victory, but a couple of hours earlier Kasia Niewiadoma had set the Cauberg alight with a stunning win of her own.

Having tested the water on the previous lap, Niewiadoma dropped Marianne Vos the last time up the Dutch race’s signature climb, before the most nail-biting of final kilometres. Behind the Canyon-SR AM rider, Annemiek van Vleuten was closing in, metre by agonising metre, with each revolution of a massive gear.

But Niewiadoma gritted her teeth and summoned every ounce of strength. With 25m to go, she looked around for the first time, raised her arms, and won by the slimmest of margins and with the biggest of smiles.

That finish was a physical manifestation of how she describes her attitude to racing to Cycling Weekly. “There’s no mercy, there’s no giving anything away or trying to be polite, it’s about achieving something you really want,” she says.

Even before that day, the Polish rider had good memories from the hills of Limburg. She finished 11th on the same finish during the final stage of the 2013 Boels Ladies Tour, where she was 10th on GC and best young rider. At 18 years old, riding as a trainee for Rabobank-Liv Giant, she placed in the top 25 in each of the six stages, ahead of many more experienced competitors.

“She was a very good addition to the team,” says then team manager Koos Moerenhout, who worked with Niewiadoma until the end of 2016. “She was enthusiastic, willing to learn, and on the climbs you could tell she had something exceptional.