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  "description": "Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney is ready to contest the Vuelta, just a week after the best spring of her career. ",
  "path": "/niewiadoma-phinney-is-more-confident-than-ever-once-youre-good-and-happy-impossible-doesnt-exist/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-02T11:11:07.000Z",
  "site": "https://escapecollective.com",
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  "textContent": "Gruber Images, Cor Vos\n\nSecond at the Omloop Nieuwsblad, second at Strade Bianche, second at the Amstel Gold Race, fourth at La Flèche Wallonne, third at Liège-Bastogne-Liège. If not for a crash at Milan-San Remo, it's possible Kasia Niewiadoma-Pinney would have an even more impressive string of results so far this season.\n\nThe crash, on the descent of the Cipressa, took her out of the Italian race and kept her at home for Dwars door Vlaanderen and the Tour of Flanders, two other races she likely would have featured in.\n\nThe Polish champion has clocked good spring campaigns before. In 2025, she was fourth at the Tour of Flanders and fourth at La Flèche Wallonne. In 2024, she finished fourth at Strade Bianche and second at the Tour of Flanders before she won La Flèche Wallonne, her first WorldTour win since a stage of the Tour of Britain in 2019. Her 2023, 2022, 2021, 2019, and 2018 Classics seasons all had similar lists. A long list of top 5s and top 10s, with the odd win – Trofeo Alfredo Binda in 2018 and the Amstel Gold Race in 2019 – but the last time Niewiadoma-Phinney had such a consistent spring was in 2017, when she finished third in all three Ardennes Classics. That year, she went on to win the Tour of Britain, her first race after the Classics.\n\nBack then, women's cycling was on the cusp of major change; that was before minimum wages, before mandatory live coverage. Women's cycling was very different, but Niewiadoma-Phinney had always been flagged as a major talent.\n\nNiewiadoma-Phinney and Demi Vollering on the Kapelmuur at Omloop Nieuwsblad.\n\nFew riders have been able to keep up with the change the way Niewiadoma-Phinney has. She's had her setbacks, but for the last two years, she has clawed her way back to the top of the sport. Going into La Vuelta Femenina on Sunday, she is _the_ rider to watch. It's her race to lose.\n\n\"It's interesting. I feel like I'm asked that question very often, and I always say I'm good, but I feel like it's been long-ish season, and I always feel kind of uncertain about the transition from classics to stage racing,\" Niewiadoma-Phinney said when asked how she felt ahead of the Vuelta. \"I feel like, normally, I need more time. So on one hand, I'm excited to start with the Vuelta, because it's a cool race. But also, on the other hand, I feel a little bit of uncertainty of how good I am on the longer climbs coming from classics.\"\n\n> I think it's gonna be a good progress or process for what's next this summer.\"\n\nNiewiadoma-Phinney has been in the sport long enough that she's learned to go from racing the Classics to racing the Vuelta with an open mind, but this season, she has been riding with a confidence that can only be built from years and years of riding at the top level.\n\nNiewiadoma-Phinney started her career on Rabobank, back in 2014. She was 20, on a team with some of the greatest in the sport: Anna van der Breggen, Annemiek van Vleuten, and Marianne Vos. Also in the team, then in her third season, was Pauline Ferrand-Prévot. At 20, Niewiadoma-Phinney was the second youngest rider on the roster. Now, in her ninth year with Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto, Niewiadoma-Phinney is one of the older riders on the squad.\n\n\"Over time, as I grew older, I also matured, and I could see myself differently in the sport. Starting at Rabobank, I was super insecure [in] myself, and I felt quite, like, shy – not even shy; I was always outgoing person, but embarrassed in some ways of knowing that I don't know much about cycling, and I had to learn it kind of the hard way by the failures.\"\n\nRabobank was stacked with talent. From left: Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, Roxane Knetemann, Lucinda Brand, Marianne Vos, Anna van der Breggen and Niewiadoma-Phinney – pictured at sign-on for La Flèche Wallonne 2016.\n\n\"I think I was just figuring my way out in a big world, let's say, when I left Poland. I also feel like I was impatient because I just wanted always to prove myself. So I wasn't patient to wait for the finish line and then prove myself, but I wanted to prove myself from the start to be seen that I'm hard working or that I'm strong, whatever, and that would very often cost me races, because I would not be able to, do everything at the same time.\n\n\"Now I'm way more mature and sure of myself and confident, and I know what I do in my life and why I do it.\"\n\n### This post is for subscribers only\n\nBecome a member to get access to all content\n\nSubscribe now",
  "title": "Niewiadoma-Phinney is more confident than ever: ‘Once you’re good and happy, impossible doesn’t exist’",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-02T11:11:10.908Z"
}