Tour de France champion Kasia Niewiadoma ends season, to skip Gravel World Championship title defense

The Canyon-SRAM announced on Wednesday that Kasia Niewiadoma has ended her 2024 season and will not compete in this weekend's UCI Gravel World Championships .

The Polish rider won the Tour de France Femmes and La Flèche Wallonne during the road season and finished second at the Tour of Flanders and eighth at the Olympic Games in Paris.

"After such an intense year, or let's say summertime, filled with lots of emotions, ups and downs, I decided to close my 2024 season now and skip defending my [gravel world] title," Niewiadoma said in the social media post.

"I want to focus on recovery, time spent with my close ones, and celebrating everything that happened this year! I wish all the participants a lot of luck, and thank you for the immense support I've been getting from all of you!"

Niewiadoma won the Tour de France Femmes by just four seconds, holding off a long-range attack by 2023 Tour de France winner Demi Vollering on the final stage to the summit of l'Alpe d'Huez.

The victory followed a renewed vigour for the 30-year-old after her world title in the 2023 UCI Gravel World Championships , where she got the better of Vollering at Silvia Persico (Italy) in her first elite women's gravel race.

She went on to win the Big Sugar gravel race at the end of last season, calling the race "insanely hard", showing that her new training schedule that she had adopted was working.

After her first Classics win in five years at La Flèche Wallonne, she said she hoped it would inspire people to keep pursuing success.

"It's all about the faith ... if you know what you're capable of and you don't let anyone make you feel less or if you don't let any failure make you feel like you don't deserve something then anything's possible," she said earlier this year.

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