Kristen Faulkner (EF Education-Oatly) got a bit more than she bargained for when she attacked only 2km into stage 3 of the Tour de Suisse Women. Nobody joined the Olympic and US champion’s move, and so Faulkner went off on a solo breakaway that was only reeled in 34km from the finish, after 87km alone at the front of the race.
“I’m definitely more fit now than I was this morning,” said Faulkner with a big smile in a post-race interview with CyclingPro.net.
The team had planned to make the race and be part of the breakaway, but Faulkner hadn’t thought she would be all alone for most of the stage.
“We wanted to get into a break today, so I tried to initiate a break hoping that some people would come with me. But no one came with me, I found myself solo. I had a 20-second gap, 30-second gap, 45-second gap, and I was like, ‘well, I guess I'll just hold it’.
"I knew that the last climb would be raced pretty hard and I thought, if I stay out front then I could at least be with the riders when they crest the final climb and maybe help in the sprint for our sprinter Noemi [Rüegg]. That was the plan, we wanted to make it a bigger break, but that didn't happen."
Having suffered a concussion in a training crash in December, the 32-year-old said that she was still building her form towards her big goals in the summer.
“I’m definitely not at top form. I think today was really good to practice my long efforts because in prior years those have been my strength, and this year I haven’t been able to do well in the long efforts because I haven’t really trained them. Between now and the Tour, my big goal is to train the 20-to-40-minute efforts. Today helped that a bit."
After being reeled in, Faulkner finished in the main peloton, crossing the line in 35th place, one second behind stage winner Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek).
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