This is how you make history. A Polish woman is the leader of the Tour de France!

In the fifth stage of the Tour de France Femmes, the competitors travelled from Bastogne to Amneville. Katarzyna Niewiadoma became the leader of the general classification of the race thanks to another great performance, but also a lot of bad luck for Demi Vollering. The previous leader was involved in a serious crash.

The unknown deals the cards

Vollering and Niewiadoma finished together in the top three on stage four – in second and third position respectively. The Dutchwoman is a very good rider, but on Thursday she suffered a huge misfortune that may rob her of her chance to win the overall race. She crashed about six kilometres from the finish line and lost a lot of time to Niewiadoma (exactly one minute and 46 seconds). Perhaps even more importantly, she was badly banged up. The stage ending in Amneville brought her two pieces of bad news.

The Pole, on the other hand, could have even won Thursday’s episode. Ultimately, she lost only to the Hungarian Blanka Vas. The podium was completed by the German Liane Lippert.

The unknown in the yellow shirt

Three days before the end of the race, Niewiadoma has a 19-second lead on the podium over American Kristen Faulkner and 22 seconds over Dutch representative Puck Pieterse. She therefore has a good chance of triumphing in the final classification of the Tour de France Femmes. The next stage of the race will take place on Friday. It will start at 1:30 p.m. Everything will be decided on Sunday.

The last few days have shown how unpredictable cycling can be. In the Tour de France Femmes, the Polish representative – at least for now – is taking advantage of her skills and the bad luck of her rivals. At the Olympic Games, however, she herself took part in a disaster that most likely deprived her of a chance at a medal.