Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney has put to bed the mystery surrounding the Mont Ventoux Strava QOM, updating her Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift stage upload to prove she shattered the record.
The Canyon-SRAM rider soloed to victory on stage seven atop the mountain, but did not initially log a time on the official leaderboard due to her Strava privacy settings.
The QOM – the fastest time recorded by a woman – for the verified 'Mont Ventoux (par Bédoin)' segment at first went to Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team L’IMAD), who finished third on the stage.
Following the race’s finale on Sunday, however, Niewiadoma-Phinney updated her Strava file, turning off her privacy restrictions, to show that she rode the climb more than a minute and a half faster than the Italian.
The Polish rider's record-breaking time for the 20.74km segment was one hour, six minutes and two seconds. Her average speed was 18.8kph – 0.4kph faster than Longo Borghini – on an average gradient of 8.3%.
In a press conference ahead of the Tour de France Femmes, Niewiadoma-Phinney declared herself “ready to break” the Strava QOM on Mont Ventoux, a climb she described as a “very iconic”.
When informed by Cycling Weekly after the race that Longo Borghini had initially taken the crown, Niewiadoma-Phinney said: “I was like nearly two minutes faster. [The QOM] is there, but it's not loading for some reason. I don’t know why.”
The answer, it turned out, lay in the fact the 31-year-old's privacy settings hide the ends of her rides on Strava. As such, her stage seven upload appeared to finish a few hundred metres short of the summit of Mont Ventoux, meaning she did not publicly record a time for the segment.
This has now been updated, as has the leaderboard.
More than 19,000 women have ridden the Strava segment for Mont Ventoux.
Seven of the top-10 best times were recorded last Friday during the Tour de France Femmes stage; alongside Niewiadoma-Phinney and Longo Borghini, the leaderboard counts Paula Blasi (UAE Team L’IMAD), Kim Le Court-Pienaar (AG Insurance-Soudal), Marion Bunel (Visma-Lease a Bike), Thalita de Jong (Human Powered Health) and Justine Ghekiere (AG Insurance-Soudal).
Also in the top-10 are former British hill-climb champion Illi Gardner and amateur Victoria Stansfield, who won L’Étape du Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, a sportive event held across one stage of the race.
Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) holds the men's record – the KOM – with a time of 53 minutes and 47 seconds.
This year’s Tour de France Femmes was won by Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez), who became the first woman in history to earn two titles in the race. Niewiadoma-Phinney finished second overall, followed by Longo Borghini in Nice.
“We came here to fight for the best possible result and, I mean, I won on Mont Ventoux, and I feel like that was the biggest day of my life, cycling-wise,” Niewiadoma-Phinney said in her post-race press conference. “I’m super proud and happy about it.”
