After her triumph in the time trial on stage 4 and a stint in the yellow jersey, Marlen Reusser (Movistar) slipped from third to 14th in the general classification at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, after a crash on the descent of the Col d’Èze with around 60km to go on the final stage.
The Swiss rider had a firm grip on the podium going into the stage, with an advantage of nearly two minutes over Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team L'IMAD) in fourth.
However, after being dropped by the favourites and crashing, she rode near the back of the race, flanked by five of her Movistar team-mates.
She ultimately crossed the line 109th, 24 minutes and 35 seconds after the stage and race winner Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez).
"I think crash-wise, she's OK. It wasn't a high-speed crash or anything," her Movistar sports director, Kelvin Dekker, said at the finish.
"She took the corner a bit weird, and then I think she crashed over a little bump in the middle of the road. She was mainly really disappointed because she saw the podium getting away, of course, in that moment.
"On the ground, she was fully realising that it would be gone. This was mainly the reason she was longer on the ground, just being really sad and disappointed. I think that's the feeling that will stay a bit longer than the wounds from the crash."
Beyond the finish line on the Promenade des Anglais, Reusser ground to a halt in front of her Movistar soigneurs and began to cry. Her team-mates each took it in turns to console her.
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"We start as a team and we finish as a team, and in the end, we had everyone there to support her mentally and get her over the line," Dekker said.
The final stage of the Tour de France Femmes featured a circuit around Nice with four ascents of the Col d’Èze. Reusser looked to be in a strong position with multiple of her Movistar teammates around her, but as they approached the summit of the second ascent she suddenly found herself isolated in the group of favourites.
An infernal pace set by Zoe Bäckstedt in service of her Canyon-SRAM leader Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney whittled down the group to a select number of riders, and it was not long before Reusser also found herself distanced off the back of the group with 67km to go.
As they went over the top of the climb and onto the descent, the gap grew and Reusser had to put in a massive effort to get back to the group. Clearly pushing hard to catch back on, she fell through a right-hand corner and found herself on ground, with her podium hopes extinguished.
In Reusser's place, Longo Borghini completed the podium behind Vollering and Niewiadoma-Phinney,
