Outclassed Tashkent team fades out of women’s Tour debut

AMNEVILLE, France: Yanina Kuskova rode Thursday´s fifth stage of the women´s Tour de France as the sole survivor of a team that had thought twice about even being there.

Tashkent City Women Professional Cycling Team, from the second-tier Continental Tour, has struggled on its debut in the women´s Tour de France. Barely halfway through the race´s fourth stage on Wednesday, six of its seven riders had already quit.

“Our budget is perhaps 100 times smaller than any other Continental team,” said sporting director Gleb Groysman. “We hesitated to come.” The team is made up exclusively of women from Uzbekistan and was set up to help the country qualify riders for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.

On Monday´s first stage from Rotterdam, Tashkent lost four of its seven riders, unable to keep up with the pace of the peloton even on completely flat terrain. Mohinabonu Elmurodova, Madina Kakhkhorova, Ekaterina Knebeleva and Asal Rizaeva all failed to reach the finish line in The Hague.

On Wednesday, Nafosat Kozieva chose not to start the hilly stage from Valkenburg to Liege. Then Margarita Misyurina retired just before the halfway. Kuskova survived Thursday´s fifth stage, finishing in a large group that crossed the line 4 minutes and 58 seconds behind the winner.

The 22-year-old sits in the middle of the overall classification, in 76th place, 15 minutes 9 seconds behind leader Katarzyna Niewiadoma. “The girls cried every day,” Groysman, a Russian-American, told AFP. Of the seven riders, four are in the under-23 category. The team travelled with just two replacement bikes and a few wheels.