Two of the riders in Lidl-Trek’s Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift squad are ‘the two Elisas’, Elisa Balsamo and Elisa Longo Borghini, both of whom return to racing after crashing out of their last races.
For Balsamo, it is the first race back after crash injuries sustained kept her sidelined for over two months. She had fractured her jaw at the RideLondon Classique, requiring extensive surgery, and only recently started training on the road again.
“It was a really bad crash, and after the surgery, I needed to stay with my mouth closed for a day and a night. It wasn’t easy,” Balsamo confirmed to Cyclingnews in Clermont-Ferrand.
“Then I started training a little bit on the trainer, and now it's just three weeks training outside. I know that I'm not in my best shape, but I think it's really important for me to be here, both mentally and physically. So I really want to say thank you to my team because they want me here,” Balsamo was grateful for the opportunity to race the Tour.
Understandably, Balsamo has no personal ambitions for the race. Unlike 2022, when she fought for stage wins with the other sprinters, she will mainly support her teammates and try to regain confidence.
“We have no ambitions for me. If it is a sprint and I am there, we will go for it. But we didn’t plan it and will just see day by day. I will try to help the team for as long as I can and try to find a good feeling in the peloton again because we know that it is never easy after a bad crash. I will also try to improve my shape day by day and just take care of my teammates. We know that it’s not easy to come back at the Tour de France, but this is the calendar is, so we will do it,” Balsamo said.
Elisa Longo Borghini is in a different situation than her namesake teammate. She was second overall in the Giro d’Italia Donne earlier this month when she crashed on the final descent of stage 5. Although she rolled to the finish, she did not start the next day as a precaution because of the pain she felt after the crash. Further check-ups confirmed that she had no fractures nor a concussion, and the Italian champion looks forward to going for a stage victory.
“Luckily the consequences of my fall weren't as bad as we assumed at the first check-up. So now I just have some sore ribs and I'm ready to go. I think nothing really changed in terms of my condition because of the crash. I'll be here hunting for stages and looking around for the GC. I will just take it day by day and see what the final result will be,” Longo Borghini said.
