Mia Griffin (Roland Le Dévoluy) has expressed her frustration at the outcome of Monday's stage 3 of the Tour de France. She hoped to be in the mix on what was the first stage for sprinters but a late crash took most of the field out of the battle for stage honours.
Though the Irish road race champion was not among the fallers in the spill with about 4km to go, only 21 riders were left in the front group after the pile-up caused a big split. And there was nothing left for her to do but ride to the finish in Angers in the second group, alongside compatriots Lara Gillespie (UAE Team ADQ) and Fiona Mangan (Winspace Orange Seal).
"It was another crazy day," Griffin told stickybottle after the 163.5km stage. "It was a day I was aiming towards because it was for the sprinters so I thought I had a good chance on that sort of finish. I was pissed off, to be honest, about how it ended up.
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"With that crash… I had to clip out and just stop and then there was a group of 20 riders or so up the road. And obviously we were never going to close the gap in the second group after we had to stop. And then, it's just over really.
"So I'm disappointed with the result, but what can you do? We'll just have to fight again tomorrow and try and take as many opportunities as possible. When SD Worx were pulling it was really, really hard for the last 50k, it was just on the whole time."
The lead group of 21, the only riders ahead of the crash, went to the finish for a sprint. It was won by Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx ProTime) ahead of Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike), who re-took the yellow jersey.
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The crash occurred late in the stage, and the usual 3km safety zone was extended to 5km due to the technical natute of the run-in. It meant none of the riders who crashed, or were delayed by the incident, lost any time in the general classification. Gillespie finished in 22nd place, with Griffin 31st and Mangan 71st.
Griffin said, aside from the pressure being applied on the front, and the speed being whipped up, the nature of the course yesterday and the constant aggressive fight for position made for a stressful 3½ hours, averaging just over 44km per hour.
"There was lots of towns to go through so it was really technical and the whole time there was just full chaos. No girls want to let you through, nobody gives you an inch in this race. So you take what you can.
"Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day but I'm happy I didn't come down today and we'll go again tomorrow," she added of Tuesday's stage 4, which takes the riders on a flat 130.7km from Saumur to Poitiers.
Griffin, Mangan and Gillespie - the Irish road race champions over the last three seasons - are the first ever Irish women to ride the women's Tour de France, which is being fought out over nine stages this year.
The women’s Tour has been run in two iterations down the years, both owned by ASO, which also owns the men’s version of the race, which concluded in Paris on Sunday. Tour de France féminin was promoted from 1984 to 1993 and then the race was revived, as Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, in 2022.
