Mia Griffin (Roland Le Dévoluy) said she was delighted to finish the Tour de France, especially after having to make a huge effort to get into the grupetto on yesterday's final stage so she wouldn't have to worry about the time cut.
"I'm happy I got through it, so happy," she said of completing the nine-stage race and now counting herself, alongside Fiona Mangan and Lara Gillespie, among the first three Irish women to ever finish the iconic event.
Though there was a 'last day of term' atmosphere on Sunday morning, the riders still had to get through 124km from Praz-sur-Arly to Châtel Les Portes du Soleil featuring 3,000m of elevation gain. The hammer went down from the start, with riders being spat out the back on the Côte d'Arâches-la-Frasse, long before the big difficulty of the day; the HC Col de Joux Plane.
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"I had to die to get into the grupetto because it was a really big group," Griffin said. "I saw it up the road on the climb, and I was thinking 'okay, I need to get there'. And we were in a small group of about five of us. So we died to get to that group.
"And then after we got to it, it was actually a nicer day than yesterday. We could take the climbs a little bit more handy. We could even enjoy them a little bit, I suppose, because we were a nice big group so we weren't too stressed about making (the time cut), we were good."
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Griffin said the atmosphere in her own team was special through the Tour, as the riders overcame some mishaps on the road, and illness, to get through the race.
In terms of her own performance, though she hoped to contest the sprint on two stages, one was ruined by getting caught behind a crash and the other by having to pull her brakes in the final, putting her out of the gallop.
Overall, Griffin said she had a real sense of satisfaction at having finished the Tour and believed she probably wouldn't have been able to do so before this year.
"It was crazy nice to be able to make it, I don't think I would have been able to make it this time last year," he said. "My fitness has come on and leaps and bounds. It still has a lot to develop and my run into the Tour wasn't ideal after the Giro, being sick and injured.
"But I'm just so relieved and happy to have gotten through it, to just feel it's done and that I've ticked that box. It was an amazing week as well... to see what Lara (3rd place on stage 3) did and see Fiona and the breakaway. It was a great week."
