Back to defend her win from 2023, Tiffany Cromwell finished again on the podium of Gralloch Gravel in Scotland with a strong performance to take third place. It’s the third gravel race of 2024 for the CANYON//SRAM Racing rider. After winning Swartberg 100 in South Africa, it’s Tiffany’s second podium of the season.

RIDER REACTIONS

Tiffany Cromwell: “I am pretty happy to take third place today and finish on the podium, especially with how my race started. I came into the race not feeling in my best form, as I’ve been up and down the last couple of weeks. I didn’t have huge confidence in myself, and when I saw the start list, I knew it would be a hard fight out there today.”

“The first climb was raced hard, and I suffer when races start with a climb. Gee and Nicole had already gone away there. I regrouped and played the long game, initially getting myself into a chase group of about 12 riders. We were in this group for a while. It was both a fun but frustrating dynamic. It’s rare in gravel that we are racing our women’s race separately. It was mostly a gravel field and only a few roadies who knew what to do when you had to chase. I tried to motivate the girls and keep the speed in the bunch, but it needed to be more consistent. I tried not to do too much, but I spent a lot of energy trying to make the group smaller, step by step, including a couple of attacks. Finally, we had a group of three. At that point, we had good cohesion and were slowly closing the gap.”

“I wanted to go solo from them and was looking for points on the climbs where I could attack, but the others were sticking close to my wheel. When we saw the leaders in the last 15km, I motivated the girls to push hard to close the gap. We gave it a good crack. But in the final few kilometres, we knew we were racing for third. I wanted to avoid doing a sprint as I didn’t know how my sprint was against the riders I was with. I expected Tessa to be the biggest challenge. So I tried to use my road craft to put myself on the back and potentially launch long. She was watching me and went first into the corner, where we went back on gravel with around 500m to go. She then went a little too hot into the next corner. So I took advantage of the small error, got ahead, and went all out to the line. It was a bumpy finish, and I nearly lost it. But happy I could hold on. It made the day worthwhile.”

“It’s pretty cool to see how much the level is growing every year, especially in Europe. It’s going to keep me on my toes, but it’s going to make the racing continue to be more fun with more racing dynamics and tactics involved. Gralloch was a great event! It was even better than last year, with massive participation, a well-run event, and a great day out.”

WHAT’S NEXT

Tiffany will return to the road with her team at Ford Ride London Classique from 24 to 26 May, followed by another gravel race at Unbound Gravel in the USA on Saturday, 1 June.

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