Spanish star Paula Blasi saved her best performance of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift to last, sprinting to second in Nice on stage 9.<\/p>\n
She moved up to fifth overall, although she was unable to unseat Antonia Niedermaier in the white jersey.<\/p>\n
It was a red-letter day for Team UAE L\u2019IMAD as her captain Elisa Longo Borghini moved to third in the race\u2019s last hours, despite a dramatic late puncture in the final kilometer while setting her up for the sprint.<\/p>\n
Eleven years her junior, the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a Femenina champion could be the sport\u2019s future. She spent four days in the white jersey of best young rider and learned a ton in her first Tour de France.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall, I was coming here for the experience as I said in the beginning,\u201d she told Velo<\/em>\u2018s Julia Dowd and Andy McGrath at the start of stage 9 in Nice Sunday.<\/p>\n \u201cI cannot compare myself now to nine days ago because I think I\u2019ve grown a lot, on and off the bike.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis for sure will help me to race the next Tour de France,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n Blasi says what she learned most about herself was her \u201cneed to sometimes take it easier because I\u2019m a really emotional person, so my emotions can go on the bike.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd when you have a one-hour climb, it\u2019s not only the legs but the head. Just taking a bit more care of my mental health, I would say.\u201d<\/p>\n Being in the correct position before climbs has also been a big lesson for Blasi on a Tour of ups and downs, as she told AS<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cI would say it was a mix of highs and lows, but this is like life, no? I had better days, worse days, good legs some days, bad days on others,\u201d she said to Velo<\/em>.<\/p>\n Then there was the early Tour de France Femmes narrative of #FreeBlasi around UAE L\u2019IMAD\u2019s two-pronged leadership strategy, focused around Elisa Longo Borghini and Dominika W\u0142odarczyk.<\/p>\n It appeared there would be no opportunity for the Spaniard to chase stage wins or her own goals.<\/p>\n Did the media questions about their strategy hurt or affect her?<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, they make you think a bit and sometimes you get a bit more stressed,\u201d she said. \u201cBut again, with the team we were always so clear about that we tried to answer as good as possible and took it easy.\u201d<\/p>\n It is easy to overlook the fact that Blasi was, in her own words, \u201cnot supposed to be at the Tour\u201d.<\/p>\n According to the 23-year-old, it had been planned since January for climber Pauliena Rooijakkers to be in the line-up, but a \u201clast-minute change\u201d saw Blasi promoted.<\/p>\n Having displaced Marlen Reusser (Movistar) in the race\u2019s final hours, podium finisher Elisa Longo Borghini had something to say about their tactics in her post-race press conference.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we showed that we raced well and smart,\u201d the Italian champion said. \u201cIt was questionable for sure having three leaders, and I understand the journalists: they have to do their job.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I respect that. But sometimes there is too much speculation and it hurts the people.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause behind an athlete there is a person, a girl, a woman, and we do suffer a little bit sometimes when we read some silly stuff, let\u2019s say. And sometimes I just think we should think twice before writing down things.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe showed we could work very well today,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the end, Paula was working for me \u2013 and I was working for her until I punctured before the sprint because she\u2019s super fast, and I wanted to give her a chance to be second in a stage in the Tour de France. We went all in, and we showed we were strong.\u201d<\/p>\n Longo Borghini did not finish her 2025 or 2023 Tours due to illness. She called third place one of the proudest moments of her career after \u201crolling the dice\u201d, working to drop Marlen Reusser (Movistar).<\/p>\n \u201cIn the end, fourth or 10th does not change anything for me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Typical Longo Borghini, fiery and determined to the last. She has gone from \u201cbeing pissed\u201d at Tour bad luck to satisfaction at this race.<\/p>\n With Domina Wlodarczyk finishing seventh, Team UAE L\u2019IMAD emphatically won the race\u2019s team classification.<\/p>\n As their sports director Cherie Pridham said at regular points during the race, it looks like \u201cthe road did the talking\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/tour-de-france-femmes\/paula-blasi-learned-take-care-mental-health-from-tour-femmes-experience\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2289487672-scaled.jpg”] Julia Dowd Andy McGrath Updated August 11, 2026 07:40AM Spanish star Paula Blasi saved her best performance of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift to last, sprinting to second in Nice on stage 9. She moved up to fifth overall, although she was unable to unseat Antonia Niedermaier in the white […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-2089020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2089020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2089020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2089020\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2089020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2089020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2089020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Power of the mind, not just the legs<\/h2>\n
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Stress from UAE leadership talk<\/h2>\n
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