Nothing is predictable at the end of Paris-Roubaix Femmes. The best rider of all time, the winner of more than 250 bike races, in a situation which seems perfectly suited to her, can be out-sprinted by a rider who has only ever won thrice before. Franziska Koch can win, and Marianne Vos can lose.

The Visma-Lease a Bike rider has almost won it all, and yet in Roubaix – a race which is almost tailored for this multi-discipline world champion, who has won endlessly for two decades – she can't seem to get it across the line. Vos has raced five times: second, 10th, fourth twice, and now second again.

This time, in particular, the race situation was in Vos's favour; with 50km to go, she was in the front of the race with her teammate Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, the defending champion, and an isolated Koch. It was no fait accompli, but a betting person would have felt confident staking their money on Vos.

However, it didn't come to pass, with the pair unable to distance their German rival, but also with the FDJ United-SUEZ rider seemingly not tiring, despite trying to break them up.

"In hindsight, we probably could have done things differently, but she also made some great attacks herself," Vos said in her press conference. "I’m very thankful for Pauline, all the efforts she did, to make the gap bigger, to keep pushing. I would have wanted to finish it off, but it is what it is."

Ferrand-Prévot, for her part, conceded that Koch was "a bit stronger at the end".

"For me, I was doubting a bit when Blanka Vas was with us," the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift winner said. "When we dropped Blanka, I thought, 'OK, it’s quite a good situation for us.' I wanted Marianne to save as much as possible and try to win a sprint.

"After such a hard race, you can’t be 100% sure that Marianne will win the sprint. We tried, but it’s also part of cycling: you can’t always win."

Tactics were not the only thing that complicated Vos's fifth attempt at Roubaix; her father, Henk, passed away just before last weekend's Tour of Flanders, and grief consumed her race preparations.

After pausing to find the right words, when asked about her difficult run-up, she said: "I tried to focus as much as possible on the race itself. With the team doing such an amazing job, and Pauline, I tried to focus on the task you need to do.

"Cycling has always been a big part of my life. I just wanted to try and make the best of the preparation under the circumstances. I was also just very happy to be here because it’s one of the most beautiful races of the season. Even though I knew it might not be the perfect preparation, I just wanted to give everything I had today.

"It’s an in-between feeling, which is a weird feeling. Maybe one day it will be closer to one or another. I don’t know what to feel yet."

She added: "We miss him, just calling, having a small WhatsApp or whatever. In a way, you just try and focus on what you need, and have to do. It’s what I always do. There is enough to focus on to mostly think about that."

It was the sad situation which brought Ferrand-Prévot into this race, one that was not on her calendar originally: "When I knew her father passed away I called the team and said I would like to race Roubaix to try and support Marianne, to help her in this moment. I knew it was a dream for her to win, and I just wanted to win for her father.

"I had such good memories with them, and for me it was to say bye to him and say thank you to him. It’s why I wanted Marianne to win. We didn’t succeed, but at least we gave everything we had."

Vos will be back, to try and conquer the unpredictability, to give it everything she has once again at Paris-Roubaix Femmes. Second in these circumstances was still impressive, and a month shy of her 39th birthday, there is no sign of the Dutchwoman slowing yet.

Despite earlier statements to the contrary, her Paris-Roubaix Femmes rivals might be demoralised to hear that Pauline Ferrand-Prévot will be defending her title after all.

The French Visma-Lease a Bike rider had previously said she would be focusing on the hillier Ardennes Classics but, say, her team, she "could not resist" throwing her hat into the ring for Roubaix, which takes place this Sunday. She will be joined by team-mate Marianne Vos, who was runner-up behind Lizzie Deignan in the first edition of the race in 2021.

“With Marianne and Pauline, we have two strong cards to play, but that doesn’t mean anything comes automatically,” said Visma-Lease a Bike coach Jan Boven in a team statement. “It’s up to us to race smart and keep supporting each other as well as possible.”

He added: “Pauline was very eager to race Roubaix. Her addition naturally changes the dynamic and gives us even more options during the race. With such a strong and well-balanced team, we’re aiming for the best possible result."

Ferrand-Prévot took a memorable victory at the race last year on her return to road racing after winning the Olympic mountain bike title at Paris 2024. She attacked on the crucial Carrefour de l'Abre sector of pavé with 25km remaining, and soloed to the finish.

For Vos, who last raced at the Trofeo Alfredo Binda in mid-March, it will be a sombre return – the 38-year-old is still grieving the recent loss of her father.

“It has been a very difficult period,” she said. “It was good and important for me to spend the past few weeks with my family. This week, I’ve tried to get back to normal life again, and of course the bike is an important part of that.

“Paris-Roubaix is a very special race and has always been a major goal for me," she added. "So I’m really looking forward to being back on the start line with the team on Sunday.”

Describing Roubaix's polarising nature, she said: “From the moment you arrive here and go out for the recon, it just feels great to be here. Even though the cobbled sectors can feel like torture, the road leading to the velodrome in Roubaix is beautiful. This race is so unique in cycling. I absolutely love it.”

The pair will be joined by team-mates Lieke Nooijen, Nienke Veenhoven, Daniek Hengeveld and Margaux Vigié.

You can find TV and streaming details for Paris-Roubaix and Paris-Roubaix Femmes here in our guide.

One of the biggest stories on our site this week centred on fresh furore over handlebar width. If you thought we'd rode the wave of UCI regulation-related drama, it's far from over. Trickling down from the professional peloton to smaller British races, the real pain-point seems to be arising from a lack of clarity around the rules themselves: will they be implemented to the dot or not? You can read Pat Kinsella's piece on it here.

Cycling social media is a calmer place than usual, full of nostalgic throw backs to famous bike collections and horrible commuter cycling trips. But it also turned up some gems - I think the ballad for Paul Seixas has to be the crowning glory of this week's selection.

1. "This is the wrong road!" Pauline Ferrand-Prévot shouts into the radio as the bunch hits a dusty detour at the Strade Bianche Donne: 'The most chaotic race of the year already?'

2. How many cycling caps do you have? Indisputably the coolest part of a cycling kit, blogger Michael Wagner rocks them in this series of self portraits. “Some of those caps have rarely been worn, others have seen better days,” he wrote in a blog post. “The elastic is completely shot on some, the brim has started to rip off on at least one, and is severely warped on another. A couple of them look really small - what the heck - did they shrink?” Can you spot the decoy?

3. Myth-busting with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe. How much protein should we really be taking in per day?

4. On the topic of fuelling, Lucy Houles shares how she survived the Strade Bianche route on beers, tiramisu and gels: “I’m a firm member of the anti-bonk club and I’ve got a lifetime membership.” Her top tip? Train the gut and eat on every ride.

5. Everyone's talking about Paul Seixas. A few weeks, our News Editor, Adam, wrote an opinion piece on the recent successes of Seixas and Matthew Brennan at Faun-Ardèche Classic and Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne respectively: “These aren’t talents to incubate or to expect big things from in years to come, but to watch, to mark immediately,” he wrote. All we need now is a song.

6. The life and bikes of Robin Williams. The actor amassed a collection of over 100 bikes during his lifetime and was an avid cyclist and race fan. In 2016, his family auctioned off 87 of his bikes to raise money for the Challenged Athletes Foundation and Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation.

7. Maybe I should shut up complaining about Lime bikes after seeing the motorway commute these cyclists in the 80s had to endure…

8. Ever wanted to ride with Chris Hoy? Entries to his charity bike ride, Tour de 4 on 6 September in Glasgow are open now.

9. With the addition of Il Lombardia, the women’s peloton will tackle all five Monuments in 2027. “It wasn't a big week for women's racing but it was a breakthrough week for women's professional cycling,” says 2021 Irish road race champion, Imogen Cotter.

10. For anyone thinking they could outpace a women’s peloton, think again. This is one man’s full-pace attempt to beat the women’s Danilith Nokere Koerse race. “But my short shorts were good enough to make it on TV,” laughed the speedy amateur in an Instagram comment.

Confusion reigned among riders in the Piazza del Campo at the finish of the women's Strade Bianche. There were few complaints over a dominant team performance by FDJ United-SUEZ, who won the race through Elise Chabbey and finished third through Franziska Koch, but a significant group was missing.

With around 33km to go on Saturday, a chase group containing Demi Vollering (FDJ United-SUEZ), Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) went off course.

The group appeared to follow a motorbike which turned right onto a gravel track between two vineyards, instead of following the road round to the left. The mistake meant it was game over for all those who made it. As they turned around, a few hundreds metres downhill, and trudged back to the course, their gap to the race leaders trebled, from one minute to around three.

The time loss compounded earlier mechanicals for Vollering and Ferrand-Prévot, who already victims of misfortune on Le Tolfe around 10km before.

“Apparently we took the wrong road, so there was nothing more I could say,” Ferrand-Prévot said post-race.

Asked how the wrong turn happed, the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift champion replied: “I have no idea... I saw a moto and people going right and then we stopped 200m after. I turned back, and we were far away already. I didn’t know if the front group also turned the wrong way. I still don’t really know, so I’m looking forward to going to the bus and hear what happened.”

Vollering, the defending champion who ended up placing 20th, showed no signs of despair at the finish. Instead, she beamed with joy for her team-mate, Chabbey, the race winner. “I’m so proud of [the team], we did such a perfect race,” Vollering said.

“I had a flat tyre at the worst moment ever, and I was like I can still come back, never give up, keep pushing. They sent us the wrong way and in that moment we knew we’d never come back. All the cars passed and we were in the last of the race. Then it was over.

“Pity for me," she shrugged, "but I was so excited to hear it on the radio. I tried to sometimes tell them something, but it wasn’t necessary because they did amazing.”

Also in the group were Kim Le Court-Pienaar and Letizia Borghesi (AG Insurance-Soudal), Anna van der Breggen and Nienke Vinke (SD Worx-Protime), Mavi García, Silvia Persico and Paula Blasi (UAE Team ADQ), Lucinda Brand (Lidl-Trek), Millie Couzens (Fenix-Premier Tech), and Femke De Vries (Visma-Lease a Bike).

“I don’t really know what happened,” said Couzens, the British champion, who placed 34th. “The motorbike went right and we all just followed the bikes in front, and I was like, 'I don’t remember this on the recon', and everyone started shouting... That was quite bad, actually.

“After that, I knew we’d never come back to the front, so it was just survival. I try to enjoy moments, especially after I was dropped, I tried to take it all in. I tried to appreciate it as much as I could.”

Members of the group that went off-course finished more than six minutes behind Chabbey.

Pauline Ferrand Prévot has signed for a further year with the Visma-Lease a Bike team, extending her contract to the end of 2028.

The Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift and Paris-Roubaix champion says she loves being at the Dutch team and that "I don't see myself going anywhere else".

Whether that means she intends to retire at the end of the 2028 season – which will see her set the Olympic Games in Los Angeles as a major goal – remains to be seen.

"I really love being part of this team and I feel happy and at home here," she said in a statement issued by the team. "For the first time I feel truly understood, both as a person and as a rider. I don’t see myself going anywhere else.

"Next year, I want to focus on developing my time trial skills," she added. "Together with the team, we have made that our objective. I also hope to perform at my best at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, which is an exciting long-term goal."

Visma-Lease a Bike CEO Richard Plugge said the team was proud to have the Frenchwoman on board for another year: "Pauline belongs to the absolute top of women’s cycling," he said in the statement, adding: "Pauline represents ambition and belief, and she plays an important role in the development and visibility of women’s cycling. We are proud that she continues that journey with us."

Team manager Rutger Tijssen said Ferrand-Prévot's drive and high standards "raises the level of the entire team".

"Pauline is an exceptional athlete," Tijssen said, "but what truly sets her apart is how she combines ambition with a constant drive to develop. She sets high standards for herself and for us as staff. Not only in races, but in preparation and in mindset. That raises the level of the entire team. Her long-term commitment strengthens belief and confidence across the team."

The 34-year-old signed to the Dutch outfit for 2025 following a year-long contract with Ineos Grenadiers that saw her target and win gold at the Paris Olympics mountain bike cross-country race.

Returning to road racing for the first time in seven years with Visma-Lease a Bike last year, Ferrand-Prévot shocked many by soloing to victory at Paris-Roubaix before going on to win the Tour de France Femmes in July.

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot knew the question was coming. “Voilà, finally,” she said once it was asked. It wasn’t about her Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift victory, nor was it about her dream Paris-Roubaix Femmes debut, or plans for the coming season. The question she was expecting was about her weight loss, a topic that has followed her since last summer’s Tour.

Ferrand-Prévot was criticised during the race, which she ended up winning by almost four minutes, for appearing thinner. Speaking in her winner’s press conference last August, she said she had received “quite a lot of complaints” online, some telling her that she was “not a good example for young people”. Still, she stressed, it was her choice to make. Male riders have long cut weight for Grand Tours, after all.

On Tuesday, Ferrand-Prévot was asked once again to revisit the topic. As reported by DirectVelo, she said she was surprised by how prominent the weight debate grew after the Tour.

“Once I realised what was happening, I was mostly upset for my parents,” she said. “I wondered if they were reading all this. But for me, there was no problem, nothing to create a big controversy about, because I simply felt I had done my job as I should have to give myself the best possible chance.”

The Visma-Lease a Bike rider won the final two Alpine stages of the Tour, sealing the overall ahead of Demi Vollering (FDJ-SUEZ). It came as the pinnacle of her comeback season on the road, after she won gold on her mountain bike at the Olympics in 2024.

“What I didn’t understand is that people explained that I won the Tour solely because I lost weight like that,” she said. “But the reality is that, behind it all, there was an enormous amount of preparation, dozens of very difficult, specific training sessions… That’s the main reason for that Tour victory.

“It’s not just a question of weight loss, but also of sacrifices. Every girl would weigh 30kg if it were that easy.”

In an interview with Tages-Anzeiger after the Tour, Movistar rider Marlen Reusser said the “new standard” Ferrand-Prévot had set around weight “puts pressure” on the rest of the peloton.

Asked about the criticism she received, Ferrand-Prévot said on Tuesday: “If I started reading everything on social media, it wouldn’t work… You have to filter it. My family and my team are there for me – they are the people to listen to and trust, the ones to value.”

The Frenchwoman also confirmed she plans to prepare similarly for her yellow jersey defence next summer. “It’s actually something I’ve been used to doing for my major goals for about ten years now,” she said.

“I know what I'm doing. We're in a professional sport, we're surrounded by doctors and nutritionists, there's no reason not to do things to the best of our ability. I want to arrive at the 2026 Tour de France as the best Pauline I can be, once again, to try and win the Tour de France for the second time. I've always given my all in my preparations, and I'm not going to change now.”

A former road, cyclo-cross and mountain bike world champion, Ferrand-Prévot has set herself ambitious goals for her second season back on the road. “My goal is to fight for the very top in every race I start,” she said. “Last season I was very good on several occasions, but I still want to work on my consistency.

“That will be a challenge, but it’s one I’m happy to take on. I finished on the podium many times in 2025, but secretly I want to win more.”

Her current programme will see her race Strade Bianche, the Tour of Flanders, La Flèche Wallonne, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the Vuelta Femenina before the Tour. She is not expected to defend her Paris-Roubaix title.

Almost 300 men and women won an elite bike race in 2025, and that's only counting road events. Of those, it won't be a particular surprise that Tadej Pogačar topped the men's charts with 20 victories, and Lorena Wiebes the women's, with 25. It was Demi Vollering, however, who topped the UCI Women's WorldTour rankings.

None of this particularly matters in this latest list of our riders of the year.

We have already had Cycling Weekly's riders of the year, it's true, but that set of awards is British-focused, and decided by committee. This is a chance for our staff writers to go international, and make sure their favourites get their time in the limelight. There are no rules to this, beyond it should make sense, and repeats are allowed – although only one person chose Tadej Pogačar...

This is the second in a series of pieces where we have compiled thoughts from across the CW staff about 2025, and our favourite places to ride. Do let us know your thoughts!

Lorena Wiebes – Tom Davidson, senior news and features writer

Let me start this nomination with a simple fact: no rider, male or female, has won more races than Lorena Wiebes in 2025. The SD Worx-Protime rider claimed 25 road victories this season (Tadej Pogačar managed 20) – her best tally to date – and that’s not to mention the gravel world title and two track world titles she won, too.

To put it simply, Wiebes won everywhere. First race day of the season at the UAE Tour? Tick. Inaugural women’s Milan-San Remo? Tick. A stage of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift? Tick, plus another for good luck. For many riders, the tough thing can be keeping that consistency all the way through to the end of the year. How many of her last nine races did Wiebes win in 2025? Eight. Case closed.

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot – Simon Richardson, magazine editor & Anne-Marije Rook, North American Editor

Simon:

Being by far the strongest rider in the peloton is a gift. Yes, that rider can rightly claim to be the best, but honestly, how impressive is it if you win everything at a canter because of the physical ability passed down through your parents' genes?

What’s truly impressive is targeting the biggest two races on the calendar and winning them. And that’s what Pauline Ferrand-Prévot did in 2025. She also did it on her comeback to the road after years focusing on mountain biking. Yes, yes, yes, she will have trained on the road a great deal, but her positioning and peloton prowess would have been more than a little rusty.

Add to that the fact she was a new member of an already established team and needed to get everyone on board with her plan, and you have an exceptional achievement that surpasses simple physical ability.

Anne-Marije:

I’m such a fan of her story arc. We often, and rightly, call Marianne Vos the G.O.A.T. of women’s cycling, but Pauline Ferrand-Prévot is right there alongside her.

The 33-year-old Française is a 15-time UCI Elite World Champion across road, cyclocross, gravel and multiple mountain bike disciplines. She’s also the reigning Olympic cross-country mountain bike champion. Few riders in the history of the sport can match that level of versatility, that sustained excellence or that trophy chest.

After conquering virtually everything there is to win off-road, Ferrand-Prévot signed a three-year deal with the Visma | Lease a Bike super team in 2024, with the stated goal of winning the Tour de France within two to three years. She didn’t need nearly that long. In her very first attempt, and after five years away from the road peloton, she went out and won the thing. And with dominance at that.

Her Tour victory was nothing short of sensational. As was her Paris-Roubaix win, proving her versatility.

Ben Healy - Aaron Borrill, tech writer

In a sport that often tends to get quite robotic in terms of how riders approach racing, Ben Healy has been nothing short of a pleasure to watch. An animator in its purest form, Ben attacks using his instincts, not his power meter, and it shows in the way he races with his heart on his sleeve.

He demonstrated this in spades at this year’s Tour de France, where he delivered a magnificent solo breakaway to win in Vire Normandie on stage six. He continued his fine run of form to finish third on stage 10 and snatch away the yellow jersey, becoming only the fourth Irish cyclist in history to don the coveted maillot jaune.

And then he did it all over again at the World Championships in Kigali, Rwanda, with a performance that earned him a bronze medal. Asked about what events are on his radar in the future at a team event in Girona last month, the Irishman told Cycling Weekly, “I’d like to try the Cape Epic, that looks like proper fun.”

Mathieu van der Poel – Adam Becket, news editor

There's something about Mathieu van der Poel that doesn't always sit right with me, it might be the Lamborghinis and the self-importance, but he is undeniably one of the best bike riders in the world, possibly ever. If it weren't for Pogačar, his season with victories at Milan-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix and the Tour de France would be heralded.

It's hard to see how a rider like the Alpecin-Deceuninck man can be beaten at times; he can match Pogačar on the Poggio and then out-sprint him, too. His stage win in Boulougne-sur-Mer at the Tour was classic Van der Poel, and then he fought back into the yellow jersey again. When a race is him vs his Slovenian rival, you know it's a must watch.

Isaac del Toro - Jamie Williams, video manager

It’s close between Isaac del Toro and Oscar Onley. I’ve chosen the former because I think he’ll be the rider that takes over the baton from Pogacar as the world’s best GC rider. Del Toro made mistakes, mistakes his team probably should have helped him avoid, but he’s young and I think he’s learnt from them.

He also handled the loss of the Giro d'Italia admirably, how easy it would have been to cross the line and lose temper with the team, Carapaz or other riders in the heat of the moment. Stunning rides this year and his story is only just beginning.

Evie Richards - Hannah Bussey, tech writer

This one is easy: Evie Richards. She's the first-ever British rider to win the XCO World Championships, the first-ever to win the short track Worlds, and now, the most successful female rider in short track World Cup history, and she seems to have had an absolute blast while doing so.

She's one of the best role models for young girls entering the sport, being vocal about her firm belief that you can win on the bike without sacrificing your health and well-being.

She's clearly worked hard to strike a good balance between life and racing. You can see she genuinely loves it, and it comes through in her riding style. It's such infectious joy that you can't help but be delighted with every result she gets.

If, like me, you have a cycling-fledgling in the family, you would do well also to join the Evie Richards fan club; you'll become a happier person if you do.

Tadej Pogačar - James Shrubsall, senior news and features writer

It's obvious – perhaps a little too obvious in fact. But tasked with picking a rider of the year it's difficult to go with anyone other than Tadej Pogačar. There is little need for me to list his victories here – countless words and many, many stories have been written about them. We've even seen the first tentative strains of what might be termed 'Pogačar Fatigue' from fans (and by his own admission, he's been pretty tired himself).

But as suspense has begun to dwindle when Pogačar is around, the feeling has been growing in inverse proportion that we are seeing history being made in front of our eyes.

If you're feeling a bit jaded with it all (many aren't), know this: in 20 years' time your young clubmates will have to watch you become all wistful as you recount the Slovenian's endeavours. Enjoy this moment.

Wout van Aert - Matt Ischt-Barnard, ecomm and tech writer

Wout van Aert's incredible return to form after arguably an up-and-down 2024 season, in which any brilliance was overshadowed by injury, was fantastic to watch.

Top five finishes across the Classics season quietened any speculation about his ability to still race at the top, before he won stage nine of the Giro d'Italia to put it completely to bed.

However, it was that final ascent and, ultimately, descent of Montmartre climb on stage 21 of the Tour de France that showed just what class he still is, and I hope an omen for the year ahead. A race with Van Aert at the front is never a boring one.

Wout is back, and I hope dearly that he can add another monument to his 2020 San Remo in 2026.

Zoe Bäckstedt - Meg Elliot, news and features writer

This might be cheating because Zoe Bäckstedt is also one of Cycling Weekly’s riders of the year, but I got the chance to interview her for our mag - and our chat only affirmed her place in the top spot, for me.

This year’s success followed an already glittering career, as she added a ninth rainbow jersey to her growing collection. At January's UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships, she collected rainbow jerseys in the mixed team relay and the under-23 race. She then went on to win five of the six time trials she competed in, scooping up a national and under-23 world title.

But in her final race of the season, Bäckstedt won gold at the UCI World Championships in Rwanda as the fastest under-23 woman in the time trial. Yet, the attribute that most sung out during our interview was her genuine love of bikes - whether she’s cycling off road or on, she’s just happy to be there, riding at her best.

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot is Cycling Weekly's international rider of 2025. This feature originally appeared in Cycling Weekly magazine on 4th December 2025. Subscribe now and never miss an issue.

Everyone knew that Pauline Ferrand-Prévot – a world champion in four different disciplines – was an exceptional bike rider. As such, very few doubted that her return to the road scene in 2025 after a six-year hiatus would be a success. But no-one could have foreseen the comprehensive glory that the French superstar enjoyed this year.

It was meant to be a season of finding her legs in the road peloton once again, and working towards achieving her ultimate ambition of winning the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. An end date of 2027 was put on that target. Yet the Visma-Lease a Bike rider, 33, made a barnstorming return, reminding everyone of her unique talent as soon as the spring got underway.

Podium finishes at Strade Bianche and the Tour of Flanders were perhaps to be expected – after all, short, punchy climbs were what she excelled on during her mountain bike years – but a 58-second victory at Paris-Roubaix Femmes, a flat brute of a race devoid of any significant climbing challenges, was not.

Even more unexpected was winning the Tour on debut, especially in so crushing a manner. Ferrand-Prévot triumphed on the Col de la Madeleine by a huge 1:45 margin, making sure of her victory the following day at Châtel to win the race overall by 3:42.

It was an exhibition, and it’s why Ferrand-Prévot is deservedly Cycling Weekly’s international rider of the year. “I can’t say I really like racing, but I like winning,” she recently said. “If I want to race, it’s because I want to win.”

Project PFP

Project PFP began in the winter of 2023, eight months out from her big career goal of mountain bike gold at her home Olympics in Paris in 2024. It was a goal she accomplished, rather expectedly, and shortly afterwards it was announced she would be joining Visma. The news followed a year of talks, first with the Dutch team’s now-departed sports director Merijn Zeeman, and then with the manager of Visma’s women’s team, Rutger Tijssen.

The latter man, speaking to CW about his role in the negotiations, says: “You never know if something is going to be a success. When a process starts you need to get to know the athlete and learn how to work together. Straight away I could see that Pauline was really, really good at rising to the occasion. She knows when the heat is on and she knows what to do – she doesn’t choke on that pressure.”

Those aforementioned spring performances came about as a result of Ferrand-Prévot’s being laser-focused on the demands of Classics racing – and they also indicated to Tijssen that even better was to come at the Tour later in the year.

“Pauline could win Roubaix because she trained like a Classics rider: fewer long endurance rides, and more powerful, intense sessions,” he says. “It was during Strade and Roubaix that I started to believe that she could be successful during the Tour de France, but we didn’t have any information on how she would do across nine days of racing.”

Nor did Visma know how Ferrand-Prévot would fare on a 20k climb like the Madeleine – women’s racing has rarely ascended such long HC climbs. But Ferrand-Prévot came up with a plan to better her chances. “We wanted to add some more race days to her calendar, but she wanted to fully commit herself towards the Tour de France,” Tijssen explains. It’s why she abandoned the Vuelta a España Femenina after four stages.

“She was doing the Vuelta in Classics shape, and we needed to transform her into a GC rider,” he continues. “We both believe that everything is trainable, and if you put your mind to it, anything is achievable.”

Tour training

Ferrand-Prévot decamped to the Alps, along with her parents, for a summer of training and recons, forgoing extra racing days. “She said no to competing at both the Tour de Suisse and Volta a Catalunya because she prefers the structured life of training. Travelling and racing interferes with that,” says Tijssen. While her main competitors like Demi Vollering and Kasia Niewiadoma rode various races to prepare for the Tour, it was Ferrand-Prévot’s approach that eventually paid off.

In describing how it did so, the Visma man mixes his baking metaphors deliciously. “The cherry on the cake was the Madeleine, because everything she did there was trained and planned for: the aerodynamics, her power and cadence on the flat roads, and being patient when Sarah Gigante attacked. Everything was talked about beforehand.”

Ferrand-Prévot has already declared her intention to defend her Tour glory in 2026, while also setting her sights on Flanders and Liège-Bastogne-Liège. On the evidence of 2025, she’ll have little trouble excelling across those very different races.

“Once she has a goal, that focus and discipline comes naturally to her,” Tijssen says. “What she did this year should not really happen, but she showed that the impossible is possible.”

Tour de France Femmes winner Pauline Ferrand-Prévot has announced that she will take part in the upcoming UCI Road World Championships in Rwanda after all.

The 33-year-old, who’s performance at women’s cycling’s biggest event was nothing short of dominant, revealed that she originally intended to skip the World Championships in order to recover both physically and mentally from the Tour as well as the demanding Olympic cycle that preceded her return to road racing.

“I’ve been trying to find a good balance between making the most of all the opportunities available to me and maintaining my healthy lifestyle as a professional athlete, which is essential for me,” Ferrand-Prévot said.

“I didn’t want to ask my body, already fatigued, or my mind, at 80%, to push through again.”

However, Ferrand-Prévot noted that the circumstances this season are very different from last year. With fewer races on her schedule and less pressure surrounding the Tour de France compared to the Olympic Games, she says she feels strong and motivated to compete.

“I’m ready to keep giving the best of myself, in a smart and thoughtful way,” she said. After discussions with her trade team and the French national squad, she confirmed she will line up in Rwanda, describing it as an honour to race alongside her teammates against the world’s elite.

Ferrand-Prévot is one of the greatest athletes the sport of cycling has ever seen. The Française already holds 12 UCI Elite World Championship titles (15 if you include team events) across road, cyclocross, gravel and mountain bike disciplines. She’s also the reigning Olympic cross-country mountain bike champion and, as of August, a winner of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.

Despite an already overflowing trophy cabinet, Ferrand-Prévot is eager to take on the opportunity to chase another crown.

We’ll “give our best in the quest for the rainbow jersey,” she said, and jokingly called herself the “world champion of changing plans.”

Ferrand-Prévot previously won the elite women's road race World Championship in 2014. It was the first of three world titles she won within a 12-month period, wearing the rainbow jersey in road cycling, cyclocross, and cross-country mountain biking simultaneously.

The UCI Road World Championships will take place September 21-28 in Rwanda’s capital of Kigali. This is the first time the event has been hosted on the African continent. Ferrand-Prévot will have her chance at yet another world title on September 27, when the women’s peloton tackles the 164.6km road race.

Ten days after the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift concluded, the weight debate shows no sign of fading. Winner Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (visma - Lease a Bike) shed a reported 4kg in preparation for the punishing climbs, a decision that has dominated conversations in the peloton and beyond.

As she makes her celebratory tour to sponsors and media outlets across France, fellow riders are sounding the alarm, using social media and interviews to question the broader implications of her much-discussed weight loss.

“Ferrand-Prévot has set a new standard. When riders are so successful with this, it puts pressure on all of us,” Swiss cyclist Marlen Reusser tells Tages-Anzeiger.

Reusser had been a favourite for this year's Tour but ended up watching the race unfold from home while recovering from food poisoning.

She says she found herself both impressed and concerned by Ferrand-Prévot’s approach, and even wondered if she would need to lose weight for future editions.

In cycling, power-to-weight ratio is an inescapable metric. In the fight against gravity, every extra kilogram costs precious watts. Riders strive to optimise their bodies and equipment alike for the demands of the terrain. Over the decades, that focus has driven many athletes, men and women alike, into disordered eating, and the sport continues to struggle a balance between health and performance.

Reusser comes at this from a unique perspective. She's both a fierce competitor and a physician. She recognises that Ferrand-Prévot's weight loss was part of a calculated and supervised strategy tailored specifically to the Tour, and that the Française now plans to return to her normal weight.

But what does this do to the body, Reusser ponders. "Is it perhaps not so harmful if the deficiency is not a permanent condition?” she asks. “To what extent is it optimisation, and when does it become pathological?”

She notes that research in this area is limited. Most women in the pro peloton already fall below the standard body fat percentages but that being below the norm doesn’t necessarily mean harmful levels. However, Reusser like many of her peers, is quick to point out the that long-term undernutrition has serious consequences for women.

She references RED-S (Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport), a prevalent condition that arises when athletes don’t consume enough calories to meet the demands of training and daily life. The resulting energy deficit can disrupt multiple bodily systems, affecting reproductive and bone health, metabolism and mental well-being.

Reusser worries that Ferrand-Prévot’s approach to race optimisation may have gone too far, sending the wrong message to young riders entering the sport, especially those that do not have access to a nutritionist and professional supervision. Critique is warranted, she says.

“My young teammate asked me: ‘Did you see? Ferrand-Prévot measures her body fat and then decides whether she’s allowed to have breakfast’,” she says, fearing that years of educational work around malnutrition and anorexia are at risk of being undone.

In the past, Reusser campaigned for a body fat limit to be adopted by cycling's governing bodies but it went nowhere.

When it comes to herself and her future Grand Tour aspirations, Reusser says she intends to stay true to herself, and maintain the balance of health and on-the-bike success.

Reusser is only the latest in a slew of female professional cyclists to come forward.

Dutch rider Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez), this year's runner-up in the Tour, pushed back hard against the weight-centric narrative: "The biggest priority is to be healthy...I can show girls that you don't have to be super, super skinny, and that you can just believe that if you have the power and that you train hard, that you can make it," she stated. "I make, and will continue to make, every decision in my career by putting my health first."

French pro Cédrine Kerbaol (EF Education), who has a background in nutrition, also warned that cycling is in a “dangerous moment,” noting that decreasing weight in the name of performance can damage menstrual health and bone density.

Leaning out in preparation of a race is a common practice in a variety of elite sports for both men and women athletes, yet Ferrand-Prévot’s weight loss has drawn disproportionate scrutiny. But many, like Reusser, argue the discrepancy is necessary.

American Kristen Faulkner (EF Education), for example, has spoken candidly about female health concerns in racing, highlighting that underfueling affects women differently than the male peloton. “If a man doesn’t fuel properly, he bonks, but if a woman doesn’t fuel properly, she could lose her period.”

The ongoing debate has prompted the women’s riders’ union, The Cyclists’ Alliance (TCA), to call for mandatory yearly RED-S and bone mineral screenings to safeguard athlete health. The organisation also plans to launch a campaign of education and awareness for health and wellbeing.

"The current system is not set up to protect female health, so I believe it’s our duty to continue educating and advocating for better standards that allow women to perform with well-fuelled, strong, and happy bodies," TCA president Grace Brown said in a statement this week.

‘Watch the Femmes!’ goes the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift slogan. It’s everywhere, on hats, on musettes, on advertising hoardings. And people do; in fact, this year, more people than ever watched the Tour, on the roadside and at home. It’s happening. In just four editions, the race has changed so much from La Course, an event tacked onto the men’s equivalent to something in its own right. People no longer need to be told to watch the Femmes – they already are.

France TV, the host broadcaster, published figures this week showing that they had an average audience of 2.7 million viewers per stage, an increase of more than 500,000 each day last year, which meant a 31.6% TV audience share. The final stage, won by Pauline Ferrand-Prévot in Châtel had an average audience of 4.4 million, peaking at 7.7 million. People are watching the femmes.

The roadsides looked similarly packed with fans, with the Grand Départ in Brittany and the final two Alpine stages particularly popular, with bars emptied and attention switched on for the best riders in the world. These fans don’t need to be told to watch women’s racing; they already are, and they are loving it. They aren’t even there for the publicity caravan as much as they would be for the men’s race, given its reduced size. There’s less free stuff to attract the crowds, so the racing does it instead.

It helps, with all this, that France has its first winner of the Tour de France Femmes after four editions, Ferrand-Prévot, already an icon after her road, cyclo-cross and mountain biking exploits, adding yet another trophy to her cabinet. A second Demi Vollering win would not have had the same impact.

Ferrand-Prévot is not isolated though, French women’s cycling is close to a boom moment, with Maëva Squiban winning two stage wins this year, and the young Breton joining Ferrand-Prévot, Juliette Labous, Cédrine Kerbaol and Évita Muzic as French stars of the peloton. The Netherlands might still be on top, but France is up there as a powerful cycling country, much more so with its female stars than its men.

I was watching the Femmes last week, when I could, given it is behind a paywall on TNT Sports in the UK, and also when I was allowed to, given the lack of full and complete coverage of the race. The men’s Tour can be watched – subscription and adverts permitting – from kilometre 0 to the very end, but the Femmes cannot, meaning that much of the action is not shown to the TV viewer. It’s the same story with the highlights.

The result is, as much as we want to watch the Femmes, it’s not always available, and difficult. I want to be able to watch every minute of action, even if not a lot is happening, it’s part of the beauty of Grand Tour racing. Perhaps this is in the plan for the future, as the race continues to grow, it’s just a shame it isn’t here now.

Things happen early in races, breaks are created, attacks are put in, like Anna van der Breggen’s on stage nine this year, and incidents happen. Not seeing them means you can’t understand the whole picture of the race, something which feels all the more crucial in the nascent world of the Tour de France Femmes.

This always seems to be the story for women’s racing, which is electric and enthralling, that it gets treated as an afterthought when it comes to TV broadcasting and the schedules, the same is true of many of the Classics and other races, but the Tour should be at the forefront of doing something different.

I know, from next year, the men’s Tour will be just as behind a paywall in the UK. I’m still heartbroken about this, but I’m also annoyed that I really wanted to watch the Femmes this year, and couldn’t see all of it.

We don’t need to be told to watch the Femmes now, we already are. Just give us the tools to do so.

This piece is part of The Leadout, the offering of newsletters from Cycling Weekly and Cyclingnews. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here.

If you want to get in touch with Adam, email adam.becket@futurenet.com, or comment below.

Cycling has a long, complicated relationship with weight. In a sport where every watt matters, and climbing is often king, power-to-weight ratio is an inescapable metric. In the fight against gravity, every extra kilogram costs precious watts. Just like the equipment used, riders strive to optimise their bodies for the demands of the terrain. Over the decades, that obsession has driven many athletes, men and women alike, into disordered eating, and the sport still struggles to draw the line between what’s healthy and what yields the best performance.

Fortunately, the culture is evolving. Today’s top riders fuel smarter, train more holistically, and place greater value on mental and physical well-being. But elite sport is rarely healthy, and body scrutiny is hard to escape. And when it comes to who gets scrutinised most, the burden is still far from equal, as this past week in France made painfully clear.

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot is one of the greatest athletes the sport of cycling has ever seen. Still just 33 years old, the Française holds 12 UCI Elite World Championship titles (15 if you include team events) across road, cyclocross, gravel and mountain bike disciplines. She’s also the reigning Olympic cross-country mountain bike champion. And as of yesterday, the winner of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.

Yet much of this past week’s discourse wasn’t about her performance, but rather, her weight.

After her spring campaign, in which she notably won Paris-Roubaix, Ferrand-Prévot largely disappeared from the races, pouring herself into her Tour de France preparation.

This race carried a lot of significance for her. As a young child growing up in France, Ferrand-Prévot had wished she were a boy so she could race the Tour de France. For most of her life, the race didn’t exist for women. It wasn’t until 2022, three years after she quit road racing, that a revived women’s Tour de France emerged. After winning nearly everything there was to win in the dirt, Ferrand-Prévot returned to the pavement with one clear goal: to win the Tour de France Femmes within 2-3 years. The 2025 edition was supposed to be merely a “test run” yet she trained as if it were her only shot.

Like her male teammates Jonas Vingegaard, Sepp Kuss and the like, Ferrand-Prévot used every resource the Visma - Lease a Bike team made available to her. Altitude camps, performance labs, precise nutrition and guidance from sports scientists, coaches and nutritionists. She even bought a home in Andorra for easier access to big climbs.

She and her team left no stone unturned to tune her body for the Tour’s brutal mountain stages and the infamous Col de la Madeleine specifically. And yes, that meant losing weight. Four kilograms to be exact.

“For this race I knew I had to climb for one-and-a-half hours over the Col de la Madeleine and I tried to make the most of it,” she told the press. “You need to adapt to the terrain you have.” She added that she’d carried more weight in spring because she needed “power on the flats.”

When she remerged in the peloton on July 26 for the opening stage of the 2025 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, she looked leaner, and yes, skinnier, than ever. Fans, competitors and media were quick to take note. In turn, Ferrand-Prévot addressed the questions and concerns with frankness.

“It’s my job to be the best as possible,” Ferrand-Prévot said. “We know this is an endurance sport, and to climb you need to have a [high] watts per kilogram. I made the choice. I worked hard for it.”

She was also quick to note that this peak-performance physique was temporary.

“I don’t want to stay like this,” she said. “But we also had a good plan with the team’s nutritionist and everything is in control. I didn’t do anything extreme and I still had power left after nine days of racing.”

Whether her approach was commendable or not is up for debate. But it certainly wasn’t anything unusual. Vingegaard undergoes similar altitude camps, closely managed lean-outs, and rigorous performance targeting. Tadej Pogačar, too, has spoken about managing weight through training and the off-season. Yet during their three weeks of racing in July, neither man faced even half the public scrutiny Ferrand-Prévot received this week.

Her weight loss was splashed across newspaper pages, debated on TV panels, criticised on social media. “She’s too skinny.” “This isn’t healthy.” “A bad example for young girls.” Some even accused her of promoting disordered eating, despite the fact that her preparation was medically supervised. All this body commentary cast a shadow over a golden performance.

Sure, male cyclists’ bodies are scrutinised too, but less often and differently. Society tends to treat male performance optimisation as purely athletic. A female athlete’s weight, by contrast, becomes a matter of public concern, moral judgment, even policing.

So what did Ferrand-Prévot do that was so different from any other elite athlete tuning their body for peak performance? She did it as a woman. That gendered lens, the comments, the coded concern, the casual critique, tells us more about us than it does about her. It's a glaring double standard.

Yes, we should always scrutinise our sport and ensure athlete well-being comes first. We must emphasise also that the questionable measures taken at the top level are highly event- and rider-specific and done in a controlled environment; it's not something for amateurs to emulate. And that’s precisely why Ferrand‑Prévot’s transparency should be commended, not condemned. There are real concerns about athlete well-being in endurance sport, and undoubtedly, cycling has long had a weight obsession, but that weight is not hers alone to carry.

This week, the world should be talking about Ferrand‑Prévot’s tactical brilliance on the Col de la Madeleine, her searing solo into Châtel, and her historic victory. Let’s not diminish it by reducing her to her weight.

If we’re going to question Ferrand‑Prévot, we must question every man in the mountains the same way. Until then, let her be legendary.

'Don't call it a comeback', as the saying goes – and never could it be more apt than in the case of last year's queen of the peloton, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot.

The writing was on the wall – or at least in the French rider's wheel marks. Fat, knobbly wheel marks dusted with the desiccated soil of an untouchable Olympic mountain bike victory. She had never gone away – she was just a little out of sight for a while.

Only six races in to her return to the pro road peloton last year she astounded onlookers with a dominant solo victory in one of the hardest events on the calendar – Paris-Roubaix Femmes.

And now, anyone who thought she might have simply got lucky with one good ride, was silenced emphatically by the Frenchwoman on the final two mountainous days of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, after she took a brace of solo stage wins – the latter wearing yellow to seal the overall victory.

Let's find out a little more about the woman who ended 36 years of French hurt at the Tour.

1. Success was on the cards from an early age for Ferrand-Prévot, who won four national titles across road and MTB when she was still a youth rider.

2. Her first sport had been figure skating, with her parents initially reluctant to let her take up cycling. But she persuaded them to let her join a club in her home town of Reims – after which there was no looking back.

3. In 2015 she achieved a historic triple World Championships haul – road, cyclo-cross and mountain bike.

4. Of those three, her mountain biking feats make up the biggest part of her palmarès. She has 14 MTB world titles spanning, cross-country, marathon, short track and team relay.

5. A veteran of four Olympic Games, Ferrand-Prévot has competed both on and off-road over the years but medalled only once, winning MTB XCO gold at last year's Paris Games.

6. At the other end of the Olympic spectrum, she almost gave up bike racing after Rio 2016, having quit the MTB race and finishing well down in the road race after an injury-hit season.

7. Instead, she bought herself a bulldog pup that she christened Rio, who lifted her spirits and helped her to continue.

8. She has spent the last five seasons concentrating on the mountain bike – to great effect – but returned to the road this season. To equally great – if not greater – effect, as we saw in France.

9. In 2023/24 she rode with the Ineos Grenadiers team, who supported her in her attempt to win at the Olympics. However she left because the team's lack of plans to field a women's road team did not fit with her desire to return to road racing.

10. Ferrand-Prévot is in a relationship with men's WorldTour pro Dylan Van Baarle. Like 'PFP' he is a former Paris-Roubaix winner (2022) and rides for the Visma-Lease a Bike team.

11. She was yellow-carded after Milan San Remo this year for irregular sprinting.

12. A strong family background in cycling meant it was almost predestined that 'PFP', as she is known, would take to two wheels. Her father ran a bike shop and her mother a cycling school.

13. On top of that, her uncle, Ludovic Dubau, is a former mountain biking champion, winning the French national championship in 1994.

14. Her younger sister Axelle is also a successful bike racer. A veteran of many of the major Classics races and more, she has more recently taken to gravel racing, and placed second at this year's Traka event and taking podium places in the Gravel World Series events.

15. She is an outspoken advocate for women's competition and explained that when she was very young she told her mum that she wanted to be a boy so that she could ride the Tour de France. Times have changed.

16. She has no problem mixing up disciplines, saying that they can complement each other and adding: "I don't like monotony".

17. As well as a base in Monaco, Ferrand-Prévot has a place in Andorra, which she says is perfect for training for big, mountainous races. The Tour de France Femmes, for example…

18. On top of all her scientific success, she has a "scientific" degree, and has also completed further studies in physiotherapy.

19. The first pro road team she joined was Dutch team Rabobank-Liv, where she found herself under the wing of her cycling hero Marianne Vos – who is once again a team-mate this year at Visma-Lease a Bike.

20. She has a tattoo that reads 'Life is a joke' (in English) on the back of her neck. It's a reminder, she says, not to take anything too seriously.

21. She has been criticised on social media for finding what she describes as the "limit" when it comes to weight loss in preparation for the Tour de France Femmes. But she said: “I don’t want to stay like this because I know it’s not 100% healthy, but we also had a good plan with the nutritionist in the team and everything is in control."

When Pauline Ferrand-Prévot was a little girl, she told her mother she wished she was a boy. She wanted to race the Tour de France, she said. But with no women’s version of the event, she knew it wasn’t possible. Her dream, she figured, was already was over.

Now, aged 33, that same girl has not only ridden the Tour – she’s won it. On her race debut, after a six-year hiatus from road racing, the Olympic mountain bike champion earned back-to-back stage wins on the final weekend, securing the yellow jersey with a convincing margin of more than three and a half minutes.

As Ferrand-Prévot sat in her winner’s press conference, inside a wooden building in Châtel, she cradled a stuffed lion teddy – a winning gift from the race’s sponsor. She cast her mind back to her younger self. What would she like to say to that little girl now? “I want to tell her that you need to believe in your dreams. You need to work hard to make it happen – you don’t get things for free in life,” she said.

“When you work hard, it pays off. Even when you have doubts and low moments, you need to persevere and keep going. That’s what I’d say.”

When the Visma-Lease a Bike rider declared her return to the road this season, she set herself the goal of winning the Tour within three years. To do so, she knew she'd have to put in months of preparation and sacrifice. One of the measures she took was cutting down her weight – a fact she has spoken openly about, and one that has garnered her criticism online.

“I have quite a lot of complaints on Instagram about it, that I am not a good example for young people,” she said. “But I also think parents should educate their kids and say to them, ‘Ok, Pauline is like this because she’s preparing for the Tour de France, and it’s not forever.’

“I don’t want to stay like this because I know it’s not 100% healthy, but we also had a good plan with the nutritionist in the team and everything is in control. I didn’t do [anything] extreme, and I still had power left after nine days of racing. It’s a tricky subject, because you have to find the limit. I also know that I can’t stay like this forever. It’s the choice I made.”

Whether she makes the choice again to defend her title is now a different question.

“Because my preparation was so hard for the Tour de France, now I don’t really see myself doing the same again,” she said. “Maybe it’s just because I’m tired and want to have a small break.

“Over these past months, dedicating myself to this has been good, it's paid off, but it’s also been really hard. That’s why I couldn’t do it multiple times in the year. It’s so much sacrifice.

“Anyways, I still have two years of contract, and I still love what I’m doing. It’s my life… I will try to win as many races as possible.”

It was almost 9:30pm by the time Ferrand-Prévot waved goodbye to the journalists and left her press conference. Two kilometres down the hill, the celebrations had already been laid out for her return to the Visma-Lease a Bike bus; three bottles of prosecco sat on top of a cool box, as well as a stack of gold, paper cups.

There was also a card awaiting the new champion. Opened ajar, it contained no words, only a picture of Ferrand-Prévot, dressed in her yellow jersey from the day before. France, at last, had a rider on the top step. And Ferrand Prévot, after years of dedication, had finally lived out her rêve de petite fille – her little girl’s dream.

Whether she returns to the race or not, that legacy will never change.

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot won an emotional Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift stage nine on Sunday to seal an historic overall victory.

The Visma–Lease a Bike rider powered home in a sensational win to become the first French winner of the men’s or women’s Tours since Jeannie Longo in 1989.

The 33-year-old rode solo to the finish in Châtel ahead of 2023 champion Demi Vollering (FDJ–Suez) and defending champion Katarzyna Niewiadoma-Phinney who rounded out the podium

Ferrand-Prévot resets the nation’s long wait for a victor at their home race and did so in sensational fashion with a second stage win in the Alps.

Vollering and Niewiadoma-Phinney moved onto the GC podium after a difficult day on the bike saw Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance–Soudal) dropped, ending her hopes of a podium place.

But it was day all about Ferrand-Prévot who earned the opportunity to carve her name into history after Saturday’s race flipped the GC on its head.

After a nightmare day for former yellow jersey holder Kim Le Court (AG Insurance–Soudal) as she suffered a major crash on Stage 8, she lost her grasp on the yellow jersey and moved into eleventh overall, leaving Ferrand-Prévot with the nation's hopes on her shoulders.

On the ninth stage of the ever-growing event, the riders faced 124km of a different style of mountain stage, with a massive 11.6km climb at the mid point in the race, before another technical ascent and a final battle to Châtel on the French-Swiss border.

How it happened

From the outset, it was a sensational battle in the finale, as Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) went out hard in her bid for the green jersey, entering the day with a 30-point lead over Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) and 25 points on offer in Morillon.

Wiebes' effort was short-lived, but it was a rapid start to racing. A steep 7km descent broke up the field as SD Worx-Protime’s Anna van der Breggen and Femke Gerritse shot off, creating a 15-second gap from the peloton, and were quickly joined by Lucinda Brand (Lidl-Trek) and world champion teammate Lotte Kopecky.

With 100km to go and at the base of the climb, the peloton had reeled in the leading quartet, but the intact peloton barely lasted a kilometre as Van der Breggen went off with her third attack of the day.

She dropped the group with Ferrand-Prévot and quickly built up around a half a minute gap over the field, with the white and green jersey riders around a minute behind that.

The Dutch rider’s dominance continued through to the summit of the climb, building her advantage to around 55 seconds ahead of the yellow jersey group, and clinching 10 points in the Queen of the Mountains classification.

With 73km remaining, the fractured peloton reformed 90 seconds behind Van der Breggen, with the group containing Wiebes managing to bridge with the yellow jersey group.

It was in the nick of time, too, as Wiebes worked her way to the front for the intermediate sprint to add another 20 points to her green jersey tally, with Van der Breggen claiming the full points now over 2 minutes ahead.

Van der Breggen entered the foot of the monster Col de Joux Plane with an advantage of 100 seconds, but it was a fierce 11.6km ascent at 8.5% ahead and a charging peloton behind.

GC podium contenders Cedrine Kerbaol (EF Education-Oatly) and Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) suffered under the pace and went down on a sharp corner at the base of the Joux Plane, putting them under pressure to come back after losing over 30 seconds on the pack.

From there, the yellow jersey group split, with the difficulty of the climb evident. An attack from Gigante splintered the chasing group, with Ferrand-Prévot, Vollering, Niewiadoma-Phinney, and Niamh Fisher-Black (Lidl–Trek) stuck on the Aussie’s back wheel in a bid to catch Van der Breggen.

Injections in pace by Vollering and Ferrand-Prévot kept the splinter group in touch, and by the summit, they were only 48 seconds in arrears.

But after a monstrous climb up the Joux Plane, a technically challenging descent followed, which saw GC contender Gigante be distanced after struggling with the pace.

With less than 50km to go, the chasing yellow jersey group continued their hunt for Van der Breggen, reining her in to under 40 seconds.

At the base of the third climb, the chasers edged closer, with only 15 seconds between them at the front of the race. But as they drew closer, Gigante was dropped even further, sitting at over 2 minutes behind and her podium hopes firmly at risk.

It was not long before the six-rider yellow jersey group, including Niewiadoma-Phinney, Vollering, Juliette Labous (FDJ–Suez), Fisher-Black, and Dominika Wlodarczyk (UAE Team ADQ) bridged the gap to Van der Breggen, who, after a long day on her own, was unable to respond, quickly dropping to over a minute behind.

The group were now invigorated at the front of the race, with the knowledge of a potential stage win on the cards, and more importantly, the opportunity of a podium after Gigante was dropped and Kerbaol sat at almost five minutes in arrears following her crash earlier in the race.

At the summit, Vollering claimed the maximum 10 points, ahead of a winding and difficult descent which allowed the six riders to put further time into Gigante, who at 15km to go was three minutes behind.

It was a nervy build-up in the final moments of the race, but the hammer finally dropped with 7km to go as Vollering launched a fierce attack, and Labous was the first to crack.

Despite Vollering’s bold move, the remaining five dug deep and reeled her back in. But when no one expected it, Ferrand-Prévot went all out in an iconic way, as the French woman opened the gap to 12 seconds over the next 2 kilometres and with a nation willing her on.

The maillot de jaune rode up the valley climb, without a meaningful response from the Vollering-led group, who trailed by over 20 seconds with less than a kilometre remaining.

Ferrand-Prévot rode solo to victory ahead of Vollering and Niewiadoma-Phinney to take the emotional win on Stage 9, welcomed with the raucous cheers of a nation full of pride.

Tour de France Femmes stage nine: Praz-Sur-Arly > Châtel (124.1KM)

1. Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Fra) Visma-Lease a Bike, in 3:38:23
2. Demi Vollering (Ned) FDJ-SUEZ +20s
3. Katarzyna Niewiadoma-Phinney (Pol) Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto +23s
4. Niamh Fisher-Black (NZl) Lidl-Trek +23s
5. Dominika Włodarczyk (Pol) UAE Team ADQ +33s Yara Kastelijn (Ned) Fenix-Deceuninck, at same time
6. Juliette Labous (Fra) FDJ-SUEZ +1:49
7. Sarah Gigante (Aus) AG Insurance-Soudal +3:53
8. Cédrine Kerbaol (Fra) EF Education-Oatly +9:22
9. Pauliena Rooijakkers (Ned) Fenix-Deceuninck +9:23
10. Nadia Gontova (Can) Winspace Orange Seal +9:42

Tour de France Femmes general classification after stage 9

1. Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Fra) Visma-Lease a Bike, in 29:54:24
2. Demi Vollering (Ned) FDJ-SUEZ, + 3:42
3. Katarzyna Niewiadoma-Phinney (Pol) Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto, +4:09
4. Dominika Włodarczyk (Pol) UAE Team ADQ +5:45
5. Niamh Fisher-Black (NZl) Lidl-Trek +6:25
6. Sarah Gigante (Aus) AG Insurance-Soudal +6:40
7. Juliette Labous (Fra) FDJ-SUEZ +9:13
8. Cédrine Kerbaol (Fra) EF Education-Oatly, +13:43
9. Pauliena Rooijakkers (Ned) Fenix-Deceuninck, +13:59
10. Evita Muzic (Fra) FDJ-SUEZ, +15:50

“The next Bernard Hinault will certainly be a woman,” declared race director Marion Rousse before the start of this Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. Now, with one stage to go, and after 40 years of waiting for the home crowds, the champion-elect is chosen. Step forward Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, France’s first female yellow jersey in the modern era.

It was on the Col de la Madeleine, stage eight’s summit finish, that the Visma-Lease a Bike rider took flight. First, she latched on to an attack from Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance-Soudal), before dropping the Australian, and then tagging and passing the breakaway. Her winning margin gives her a 2:37 cushion over Gigante at the top of the GC – 3:18 to Vollering in third – a lead the crowds on the climb knew will likely be unassailable.

As Ferrand-Prévot collected her yellow jersey, hundreds of fans stood banked on a grass verge in front of the podium to cheer. “Pauline! Pauline! Pauline!” they chanted. Thousands had made a near 20km trek to the top of the Madeleine, and now they were witnessing history. A tear in her eye, their hero smiled and waved back. She then returned behind the screens and, shielded from the folie, collapsed into the arms of Rousse. The embrace brought both women to tears.

“It’s a little girl’s dream that’s come true today,” Ferrand-Prévot said afterwards. “It’s hard to find the words.”

The plan had long been to overhaul the race on the Madeleine. In the months before the Tour, the Frenchwoman visited the mountain twice, learning the inclines and bends, every kink in the tarmac, so she’d be ready for stage eight’s finale. She'd treat it like a mountain bike race, she decided, an intense, hour-or-so effort, teetering on blowing up. On the day, everything played out “pretty perfect”.

“We put Marion Bunel in the first breakaway so she could eventually help me on the final climb. From there until the Madeleine, the girls protected me really well. I got to the foot of the Madeleine and I felt good. I felt that the pace was high, but I wasn’t full gas,” Ferrand-Prévot recounted.

“Then, when Sarah attacked, I wanted to see if Demi could follow, and I saw she wasn’t able to. I tried to get back up to Sarah, and when I got there, we reached Marion, who was on a slightly flatter part, and that allowed me to recover on her wheel to then attack, accelerate, and try and drop Sarah.”

It was a victory, she added, that was crafted in the “fine details”.

“Everyone rode perfectly as a team. That’s why I’m really happy, because it was all down to teamwork – it’s a victory for the team.”

Ferrand-Prévot’s Tour heroics come almost a year to the date she won the mountain bike gold medal at the Paris Olympics. Returning to the road, after a six-year hiatus, she set herself the goal of winning the Tour within three years. “This victory today is a sign that I made the right choice,” she said.

“It was a challenge, really, a challenge to see if I could do it. Voilà, I know there’s still another stage, and I haven’t won yet, but to wear this yellow jersey is really a little girl’s dream come true. It’s an amazing feeling. I just want to see my team-mates to thank them and celebrate with them tonight.”

In the meantime, the Frenchwoman now faces an hour-and-a-half transfer to her hotel for the evening. She’ll have a massage when she gets there, she said, and then try and get a good night's sleep. On Sunday, she has the chance to make history as the first Frenchwoman to win the modern Tour de France Femmes. Her 2:37 lead suggests that, barring catastrophe, she’ll almost certainly do it.

“I know that the girls will be 100% behind me,” Ferrand-Prévot said. “As I said, it’s really a little girl’s dream to wear this yellow jersey, so in any case, my Tour de France is a success.

“Today I felt really good, so why would I feel bad tomorrow? We’ll have to be vigilant. I did a recon of the stage – I know the Joux-Plane and the Corbier. It’s going to be interesting.”

Le jour de gloire – the day of glory – might not have arrived for France’s GC hope Pauline Ferrand-Prévot on stage seven, but if everything goes to plan, she’ll be wearing the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift’s yellow jersey in less than 24 hours.

The 33-year-old, riding her Tour debut after a six-year hiatus from road racing, is currently second overall, 26 seconds down on AG Insurance-Soudal’s Kim Le Court-Pienaar. For a moment on Friday’s seventh stage – won by UAE Team ADQ’s Maeva Squiban in Chambéry – the Visma-Lease a Bike rider led the virtual classification, before Le Court rejoined the GC group on a descent, and the leaders crossed the line together.

Missing out on the yellow jersey, Ferrand-Prévot said afterwards, was no big deal. “It’s not for today,” she explained. Her plan is hatched for Saturday’s summit finish.

When Ferrand-Prévot, the Olympic mountain bike champion, returned to the road this season, she was clear she wanted to win the Tour de France Femmes within three years. Her preparations for this year’s race pivoted around one climb in particular – the 18.6km Col de la Madeleine, the summit finish of Saturday’s penultimate stage.

Ahead of the race, the Frenchwoman visited the mountain twice. Asked by Cycling Weekly how well she feels she knows the ascent, her response was fast and confident. “I know a lot,” she said.

“I went to do the recon there, many times, because I knew it was important to know. The race will be decided there. You know, in mountain biking, you know every single route, every single corner – I also wanted to have the same pattern and to know very well the climb like this. You feel much more comfortable, you know where you are, and it’s also mentally easier.”

When the Tour route was unveiled last October, it was the Madeleine, the curtain closer of this year’s Queen stage, that attracted the most attention. “It’s around an hour and 20 or 30 minutes' worth of climbing – an effort I’m used to doing in mountain biking,” Ferrand-Prévot said. “I think it’s going to be a head-to-head race, and I’m going to concentrate on myself and my effort.”

It’s the same approach the Visma-Lease a Bike leader has taken throughout the first week of racing, and as yet, she’s still to be tested. “I’m not tired,” she said. “I was in control today. For me, it’s been a good day.”

There was a moment on stage seven, after she crested the Col du Granier, when Ferrand-Prévot began to imagine herself in yellow. Le Court had suffered on the climb and fallen away. “I thought maybe it could happen,” the Frenchwoman said, but again she stayed calm.

“I told myself, ‘My race is tomorrow.’ Today it wasn’t the goal to take the yellow jersey.”

That prize, she hopes, will come on Saturday. France has now waited 40 years for a home winner of the Tour, the last being Bernard Hinault in 1985. The French have faith that the next one will be Ferrand-Prévot.

Each day at this year’s race, the 33-year-old’s Visma-Lease a Bike bus has been swarmed with fans. They’ve painted signs carrying her name, waved bottles for her to sign, and cried at her for autographs each time she's carried out her turbo trainer routines. After stage seven, as she spoke to the media, she tore the race numbers off her jersey, and handed them to a girl who watched her in awe.

It goes without saying: Ferrand-Prévot is the people’s favourite on the ground. Does she feel confident for the race’s finale? “You can’t be confident,” she replied. “I don’t know how the others are now, but for sure I felt good again today. I didn’t use a lot of energy. I think I’m still fresh for tomorrow, so, let’s see.”

If everything goes to plan, les enfants de la patrie – the children of the fatherland – will be chanting her name at the podium. The day of glory may be imminent.

The fourth edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift kicks off in Vannes, France, on Saturday, July 26, with its hardest route and most competitive field yet.

Last week, Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon//SRAM) made her intentions clear: she’s all in on defending her title. We’ve been seeing rather little of the Polish champion, which has been intentional. Rather than racing the Giro d’Italia Women, she’s been focusing on her training.

“I really put a lot of hard work into this race. You never know how everyone else is, but I’m just excited to see where everything that we did, especially on training camp, will put us,” she said. “I just want to let my legs talk once we race.”

And they’ll need to, because this year’s field of yellow-jersey-contenders is absolutely stacked.

There’s former Tour winner and last year’s runner-up, Demi Vollering, who leads a very strong FDJ-Suez team. SD Worx Protime with two GCcards to play in Anna van der Breggen and Lotte Kopecky. Then, there’s also Marlen Reusser, now taking the lead at Movistar, Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance–Soudal) and Elisa Longho Borgini (UAE Team ADQ), all of whom are coming off strong showings at the Giro. And then there’s one of the biggest wild card of the year: multi-time world champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma | Lease a bike)

The 33-year-old Française is a 15-time UCI Elite World Champion in road, cyclocross, gravel, and various mountain bike disciplines. She is also the reigning Olympic cross-country mountain bike champion.

She’s one of the most versatile and decorated cyclists in history, and having accomplished all there is in the dirt, Ferrand-Prévot signed a three-year contract with the Visma | Lease a bike in 2024, with the ultimate goal of winning the Tour de France in two-three years.

The French woman’s last full season on the road was in 2019 as part of the Canyon-SRAM team. Much has changed since then, not least of which is the professionalism and depth of the women’s peloton. Still, her reintroduction season has been beyond expectations with a third place at Strade Bianche Donne, a second place finish at Tour of Flanders and a resounding win at Paris-Roubaix.

While the Tour win is a longer-term ambition, the team is going all in this year to position her as high as possible in the GC.

"Pauline is completely ready physically and mentally", said Team manager Rutger Tijssen. "The past two months she has been able to prepare for the Tour in peace and quiet. We made a conscious decision not to ride races and focus on training. Whether that was the right choice, we will know on 3 August."

Ferrand-Prévot appears to be keen to keep expectations at bay, stating: “For me, this Tour is above all an important moment to discover what it is like to ride a stage race of this level. This step fits into a long-term plan in which I want to gain experience and grow. Every stage is an opportunity to learn and grow in the bigger plan we have in mind as a team."

She emphasised that 2025 is a year of learning.

“I'm allowed to make mistakes this year, so I don't do them again next year,” she said.

Among the biggest challenges of her comeback, have been familiarising herself with the course and getting re-acquainted with riding in a fast and ever-moving peloton.

“I’m used to knowing everything about the lap, every single corner, everything. In mountain biking, you choose your own line, but in the bunch you sometimes can’t do what you would like to do. So it’s about accepting that and staying calm, and focussed,” she said.

“I think we underestimate the mental aspect of road cycling, because even if you are in the bunch, not riding at full gas, but going for three, four hours, it costs you a lot of [mental] energy, and it’s hard to stay focussed for such a long period.”

Still, Ferrand-Prévot said she’s more excited than anxious.

"I am very much looking forward to racing in front of a French audience,” she said. “I remember saying to my mother when I was younger that I wanted to be a boy to be able to do the Tour de France. And now that’s possible for women.

“It’s also why I came back to the road, to be able to do the Tour de France.”

Sometimes, accidents can be good. Penicillin was discovered by mistake by Alexander Fleming, X-rays were stumbled upon by Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen, while chocolate chips cookies were first made by Ruth Wakefield, who was trying to melt the chocolate entirely.

A happy accident occurred for Pauline Ferrand-Prévot on Saturday at Paris-Roubaix Femmes avec Zwift, as the Visma-Lease a Bike rider won a race that she didn't aim to win, a race she wasn't even supposed to be at altogether. The 33-year-old attacked with 19km to go and was never seen again by the chasing bunch, despite it being a move that sought to tire legs rather than achieve victory.

"I was not feeling super well the last few days," the Frenchwoman explained. "I crashed in Strade [Bianche] and since then I didn’t totally recover from the crash, I got an infection on my ankle and I had to take antibiotics. I skipped training yesterday because I felt very weak. I didn’t have a fever this morning so we just tried;. I was not very sure about my condition this morning.

"The goal [of the attack] was to make the sprinters tired, to bring Marianne [Vos] as fresh as possible to the finish so she could sprint for the win. I attacked at a good moment, Marianne asked me to go on the cobbles, and I said it was smart to wait a little and attack on the tarmac, and that’s what I did. After it was not super organised behind and I had a gap, and I went full gas to make them work.

"I was not thinking about winning the race, I just wanted to make SD Worx work. It's super cool."

That's not to denigrate Ferrand-Prévot's performance; the 33-year-old held off some of the best riders in the world, including Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) and Chloé Dygert (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) off for the final half an hour, meaning she entered a packed velodrome alone. It also followed second place at the Tour of Flanders last weekend, no mean feat.

The roar from the crowd as she entered the Roubaix Velodrome was truly spine-tingling, as was the rendition of the Marseillaise, the French national anthem, which followed. It just was never supposed to happen.

"It was not in my calendar," Ferrand-Prévot explained. "Normally I was supposed to be at altitude for two weeks again. After Strade and San Remo I asked if I could do [the Tour of] Flanders, and one week later I asked if I could do Roubaix. It was really not on my calendar and it was a last moment decision. It’s what I like with the team, I have a free role, and I race a bit like I want."

The Visma rider has pretty much won everything so far in her career: World Championships on the road, in cyclo-cross, and MTB, as well as the Olympic MTB title. Now her eyes are focused on something even bigger, after she has returned to the road after being away for four years. Her last road win came in 2015, six years before Paris-Roubaix even had a women's race, before the Women's WorldTour came into existence.

"I really want to win the Tour de France, that’s the next big goal of my career," Ferrand-Prévot said. "Winning the Olympics at home was the most beautiful, and now I’m enjoying being back on my road and working with my teammates. I really wanted to win everything on the MTB and now it’s ok if someone else wins from the team because it’s not about me.

"There’s no pressure anymore, and I’m feeling so good. We need to make the team stronger to be able to win Tour, and also to ride longer climbs. I’m looking for the next challenge."

"This first year back on the road is to discover what I can do," she continued. "Even if the main goal is the Tour, Flanders and Roubaix are good for training to be in position. The first three stages of the Tour will be quite hectic, and I wanted to train at being in a good position and fighting. These races are good training."

Despite it seeming as simple as slipping on an old pair of slippers for Ferrand-Prévot, there has been a lot going on behind the scenes.

"It was not easy," she said. "If you saw me last year at the Worlds on the road [she DNFed] you can see it’s not easy, and there was quite a lot of work over the winter. I had to have patience and trust in the process. It’s a completely different sport, so you have to get used to everything. It was also a building process, and now I feel quite comfortable in the bunch. Last weekend I was not comfortable enough to attack, but every week it’s a step process and it’s a bit higher."

Roubaix might have been a happy accident, but like penicillin, Ferrand-Prévot will now hope that she's cracked something now, that this good form can continue all the way to July.

The recently crowned Olympic mountain bike champion, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, has said that she had no choice other than to leave Ineos Grenadiers this year due to their continued lack of a women’s road team. 

Ferrand-Prévot is a five-time mountain bike world champion but has also tasted success on the road, prior to prioritising other disciplines. The Frenchwoman won the elite women’s road race at the 2014 World Championships in Spain. 

Speaking to L’Equipe this week after completing her move to Visma-Lease a Bike, Ferrand-Prévot said that her new team will help facilitate her ambitions to win the Tour de France Femmes in the years to come, something that wouldn’t have been possible if she had stayed put at Ineos. 

She said: "They [Ineos Grenadiers] do not have plans to make a women's team at the moment. And that's why I changed teams… It was a very, very beautiful experience for two years. It was incredible. But unfortunately, I have no other choice if I wanted to do road racing next year.

"Do you know what I said to my mother when I was little? 'Mum, I wish I was a boy so I could do the Tour de France.' I think I was ten years old, I really told her that. Now, this is an opportunity that presents itself to me, I can't pass it up."

Joining Visma will see Ferrand-Prévot link up with Marianne Vos once more after the two riders enjoyed a spell alongside one another at the team formerly known as Rabobank-Liv. 

"Marianne wrote to me when she found out a few weeks ago that I was coming," Ferrand-Prévot said. "She is really someone who gave me a lot when I was at Rabobank. She is really a role model for me. Being back with her also weighed in the balance for my signing with Visma."

Vos is very much seen as being the lead rider on the Visma-Lease a Bike women’s team, but Ferrand-Prévot said that their different attributes will ultimately benefit the team in the long run. 

"Marianne is more into the classics, a bit of a sprinter," she said. "I know that I will be able to try to help her win some great races, and she will be able to play her part in the Tour de France Femmes and help me too. We made a great pair at Rabobank. I have a lot of respect for her, she does too. We make a good duo."

She added: "Visma confirmed to me that I will be the leader for the Grand Tours and that they want to build a team around me. The girls they take will know that they will have to ride for me. 

"Of course, they will have to trust me for that. It's also up to me to put in the effort, and create bonds with all the girls during the training camps. But it's also a job, and like in any job, you don't always get along with everyone all the time."

Ineos Grenadiers claimed its 500th race victory this weekend, thanks to Pauline Ferrand-Prévot winning a French Cup mountain bike race in France. 

Since its days as Sky, the squad has become one of the biggest and most successful cycling teams in the world. Amongst its haul of accolades, the team has won multiple Grand Tour titles, including seven Tours de France. From the Tour of Britain to the Arctic Race of Norway, Ineos have won across the world.

Sir Bradley Wiggins won the team’s first Grand Tour, the 2012 Tour de France, and the team has dominated the biggest race in the world for a number of years through Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas, and more recently Egan Bernal. 

As well as Grand Tour titles, the team has also won a range of major one day races including Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Paris-Roubaix and Strade Bianche. Almost all of the team's wins have been from men, with Ferrand-Prévot only joining in 2023.

"This is so much more than a number - it's the output of so many people, riders, support staff and partners, especially Pinarello and Kask who've been part of every single win - each of whom has given everything for the team," John Allert, the team's CEO said to Cycling Weekly. "To all of them I say a massive thank you." 

To mark the team's 500th win,  we have picked out six of the most memorable in recent times.  

Tom Pidcock - Strade Bianche 2023  

Winning on Alpe d’Huez at the Tour de France in 2022 was undoubtedly one of Tom Pidcock’s career defining moments to date, although to some, his Strade Bianche victory several months later was arguably more significant and one of Ineos’ biggest successes in recent times. 

Pidcock had already won a major one-day race, Brabantse Pijl - and gone close at Amstel Gold - so all the signs pointed to an imminent major one day victory for the Yorkshireman. 

In a typical gutsy showing from the then 23-year-old, it arrived in blockbuster fashion on the white gravel roads of Tuscany. 

Pidcock took flight on the race’s key gravel sector, the Monte Sante Marie, before powering away towards Siena and a famous victory. At times, it appeared like the select group of chasers were going to reel him in, but Pidcock masterfully controlled the gap to hold on for the win. 

Chris Froome - Giro d’Italia 2018, stage 19

Chris Froome went into the 2018 Giro as one of the hot favourites for victory but, as can happen in any of the Grand Tours, luck wasn’t on his side in the early stages. 

Froome crashed during the recon of the opening time trial in Jerusalem and various other events appeared to halt his progress in the race in the opening period. The British rider won the stage that finished on Monte Zoncolan, but going into the mountainous stage 19, he was still significantly down in the general classification on the pink jersey wearer at that time, Simon Yates. 

What happened next was simply breathtaking. Froome attacked 80 kilometres from the stage finish on the Colle delle Finestre before going on to win the stage by more than three minutes ahead of second placed Richard Carapaz. 

As a result of his huge exploits, Froome pulled on the leader's jersey and eventually went on to take a memorable overall win in Rome.  

Geraint Thomas - Tour de France 2018, stage 12

Going into stage 12, finishing on Alpe d’Huez, the GC boat had been well and truly rocked at Team Sky after Geraint Thomas had won the first stage of a Tour alpine double header at La Rosière. 

Prior to the race, Chris Froome was seen by many as being the team’s leader at the Tour. That undoubtedly changed in the mountains after Thomas left the Alps in the race leader's yellow jersey and with two more stage wins to add to his collection after doubling up on the slopes of the famous mountain. 

Speaking after the stage, Thomas ruled out his chances of overall victory in Paris. 

He said: "Honestly no, I just want to enjoy this victory. It's unbelievable. Even when I was crossing the line I was thinking 'surely there's someone in front'. It was just nuts."

Thomas went on to win the race overall, and famously dropped the microphone at the end of his winners speech on the Champs-Élysées in the French capital. 

Egan Bernal - Giro d’Italia 2021, stage 9

All eyes were on Bernal ahead of the 2021 Giro, as he looked to prove he was much more than just a one off winner of the Tour de France. 

The Colombian won Paris-Nice and the Tour in 2019 and many expected him to add a further Grand Tour win to his collection in the years that followed. At the Corsa Rosa, Bernal didn’t disappoint, and further underlined his credentials as one of the most exciting young prospects in cycling at that point. 

Bernal took control of the race on stage nine, attacking on the steep final gravel climb to Campo Felice to take a first-ever Grand Tour stage win. He also pulled on the race leader's pink jersey for his troubles and put time into another pre race favourite, Remco Evenepoel. 

The Ineos Grenadiers rider went on to win the race overall, adding a second stage victory on a snow affected stage to Cortina d’Ampezzo in the Dolomites. 

Ian Stannard - Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2015  

One of Team Sky’s most memorable one day victories was Ian Stannard’s second successive triumph at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. 

In a four up breakaway, Stannard outfoxed his three compatriots - three Etixx-QuickStep riders, including Tom Boonen - to power away to victory in Ghent. 

During the race, the odds seemed very much stacked against the British rider, with Belgian fans rubbing their hands together with glee at the prospect of victory for Boonen. 

However, Stannard had the last laugh, distancing two of his rivals, including Boonen, before outsprinting Terpstra for the win. 

"I’m certainly not the smartest, but hopefully one of the stronger ones," he joked afterwards as he reflected on his surprise win. 

Michał Kwiatkowski - Milan-San Remo 2017 

Nowadays, Michał Kwiatkowski is perhaps not one of the headline names at Ineos Grenadiers, often taking a support role as opposed to team leadership in races. But in the team's days as Team Sky, the Polish rider played a significant role at the head of the action.

That was particularly evident in 2017, when Kwiatkowski started his Spring campaign with a bang at Strade Bianche before going on to take a bigger prize, a Milan-San Remo victory. 

Kwiatkowski helped the team take a masterful win at the longest race of the year. 

After tracking accelerations on the Poggio from his former rival at junior and under-23 level, Peter Sagan, Kwiatkowski outsmarted the Slovakian and Julian Alaphilippe in a three-up sprint on the Via Roma to claim one of the most sought after trophies in men’s professional cycling. 

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, a former road world champion and holder of three mountain bike world titles, has set her sights on a return to road racing, but not before the 2024 Paris Olympics. 

The Frenchwoman is one of the sport’s most decorated riders, having claimed ten world titles across four different disciplines throughout her career. Last year, she won four rainbow jerseys, in short track, cross country and marathon mountain biking, as well as the inaugural UCI Gravel World Championships. 

In October 2022, the 31-year-old signed for Ineos Grenadiers as the team’s sole female rider, joining as part of their “off-road roster”. Speaking to Cycling Weekly earlier this month, she outlined that her future ambitions involve a return to the road. 

“I come from road racing originally, so of course I’d like to return to the road one day,” Ferrand-Prévot said. “But not right now, after the Olympics in Paris.”  

At her native Games in France, Ferrand-Prévot will target the women’s cross-country mountain biking event, hoping to add a gold medal to her extensive palmarès. She came 10th in the race in Tokyo two years ago, writing on Instagram afterwards that she was “disappointed but not dejected” with the result. 

Asked how she has found her time at Ineos Grenadiers, who she is contracted with until the end of 2024, the Frenchwoman told Cycling Weekly: “It’s going well. I’m finding my feet. We’ve got plenty of things in place. There’s plenty of new things for me, too, new team, new staff, new bike. It’s cool and it’s really interesting.” 

A return to the road for the former world champion is currently complicated by the fact that Ineos Grenadiers do not have a women’s team, and do not take part in women’s road events. 

Asked if she expects to compete for the British team, Ferrand-Prévot remained elusive. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s not up to me to say these things. But women’s cycling is evolving really well. It’s really interesting to see the evolution and to see that the sport has grown enormously.

“What’s good in women’s cycling is that there’s no standard template for races, so it’s really interesting to watch.” 

Outside of National Championships events, Ferrand-Prévot's last competitive road races came in 2018, when she rode for Canyon-Sram. In 2014, she won the World Championships Road Race in Ponferrada, Spain in a tight sprint finish.

Ineos Grenadiers have announced the signing of Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, the first female rider to join the team, and the first rider who is purely joining their "off-road roster".

The news broke last week, and was confirmed to Cycling Weekly by a source, but now Ineos have confirmed the deal. Ferrand-Prévot has signed a two-year deal with the team, which continues past the 2024 Olympics in Paris, which is her biggest goal.

The Frenchwoman has had a record-breaking 2022, which has seen her win the short track, cross country and marathon mountain bike World Championships, as well as the inaugural UCI Gravel World Championships. 

The multi-disciplined star currently rides for the Absolute–Absalon–BMC team and is a four-time World XC champion.

The Frenchwoman currently holds the world titles in elite women's XCC short track, XCO cross-country, won in late August in Les Gets, France, and the XCM marathon won in Haderslev, Denmark in mid-September. She is the first to win all three titles in the same season. She has also won the cyclocross and road World Championships in the past.

Ferrand-Prévot said that the deal was a "dream" for her, and that she was excited to join the Ineos family of athletes.

“Signing with the Ineos Grenadiers is a dream for me," she said in a press release. "I’m super excited to be joining the off-road team and becoming part of a wider group of riders and the Ineos family of athletes. The Ineos Grenadiers’ professionalism is world-renowned and I have always admired the team’s ethos and spirit.

“To have the 2024 Olympics in Paris is huge for me. I want to be the best rider I can be in front of a home crowd and that will be my main goal over the next two years. An Olympic gold medal is the only one missing from my palmarés so it’s the one I want the most. It was a key reason to join this adventure with the Ineos Grenadiers. I still have a lot of things to learn and it is the best team to help me reach my goal.” 

She will join Tom Pidcock as a MTB rider on the team, who is the reigning Olympic and European mountain bike XC champion, rides in Ineos colours on the road, in cyclocross and in mountain biking, but the latter two have very much an individual operation. Ben Tulett, another Ineos road rider, also rides cyclocross in the team colours.

Rod Ellingworth, the deputy team principal, welcomed Ferrand-Prévot and praised her talent and dedication.

“Signing a world-class rider like Pauline is a huge boost as we grow the number of multi-disciplinary athletes racing as Grenadiers," he said.

“Pauline is a unique talent. Her palmarés speaks for itself, especially after just winning four world titles in the space of two months. But what sets her apart and makes her a great addition to the Grenadiers is her drive and grit. She loves the sport and is a natural born racer and that comes through in the way she rides. 

“Pauline is on her own journey to try and win gold at her home Olympics and this is an area where we thrive and have proven success. We are excited to support that ambition and help her achieve her goals over the coming years.” 

Ferrand-Prévot said that her main goal of the season was to be world champion in Les Gets, which she followed through on.

"I wanted to prove to myself that I could win in my home country with the increased pressure and media attention that brings," she said. Because of the Paris Olympics in 2024 that was an important test for me, and it went perfectly. I had all my family there so it was really cool to win in front of them all. I have now won four World titles in one year and I’m really happy with that!” 

“I’m still feeling super good at the moment and really motivated so I’m looking to start cyclocross again in November and try and become European Champion in Namur. After that I will take a small break and then I want to start cyclocross again and be in the best condition for those World Championships.”

Pinarello, the current bike supplier at Ineos Grenadiers for road racing, does not manufacture a mountain bike and therefore Pidcock races on an unbranded BMC Fourstroke when he competes cross-country, although he uses a Crossista when doing cyclocross, Pinarello's first CX bike in 30 years. With Ferrand-Prévot currently using a BMC in her MTB racing, this partnership could continue.

However, it has been previously reported that Pinarello are developing a mountain bike to be used by Pidcock, although it might not be ready until 2024.

Pauline Ferrand-Prèvot has been cleared to train after she underwent surgery on her leg.

The former world champion in multiple disciplines hasn’t raced since La Course in July last year, after doctors discovered a blood pressure issue in her leg.

Now after weeks of enforced rest following the operation, the Ferrand-Prévot has been given the all clear to resume a normal training load.

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The 27-year-old, who has ridden for Canyon-SRAM since 2017, said: “It was a long nine weeks to arrive to this point, but I’ve been following the guidelines to the letter, so I’m smiling now that I have this clearance.

“At first it wasn’t easy not being allowed to ride the bike.

“I took some time to adjust, but instead of being frustrated at the time off, I used it to do a lot of things that my cycling career sometimes doesn’t allow.

“The time was long, but overall it wasn’t as bad as I expected.”

In early February, the French rider underwent surgery to correct the blood flow issue in her leg.

After four weeks of no exercise, she was allowed to start walking and then another two weeks later she could start low-intensity cycling.

She has now been given the all-clear to resume a full training load and back to riding four hour sessions.

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Ferrand-Prévot, former world champion on the road, mountain bike and in cyclocross said: “I started cycling quite slow – two days on, one day off – with first just 30 minutes and slowly building up to three hours.

“I can see that I lost quite a lot of muscle during that time off, so I needed more recovery in between my sessions.

“I was getting tired easily and standing up out of the saddle at first was hard.

“Now it’s okay and I feel much better.

“I’m allowed to train as long or with as much intensity as I want.”

The reigning French mountain bike champion is focused on winning cross country gold at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, but in the short term she hopes to return to racing in May.

Former road and cyclocross world champion, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot has revealed that she discovered a blood pressure problem in her leg is causing her problems.

The 26-year-old has not raced on the road since a DNF in Le Course in July and on the trails with a second place in the European Championships in August. She had been unstoppable – winning the road world title in 2014 and the cyclocross world title in 2015 – but suffered in recent years.

"After several days of training in South Africa, I had big pain on the bike, but also for the first time, during the night," she wrote on Facebook of the problem in her left leg.

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"I was super scared, and then I asked my coach to take an appointment for exams. I had an echocardiogram that was normal. But then in another exam, the doctors saw that I had a blood pressure problem.

"They don't know why at the moment, but I have a meeting December 12 at one of the best specialists."

The issue sidelines her in the current cross season, but ends four years of wondering about her problems. Since 2015, she has not won any major professional event even if able to compete in the smaller national events.

"For four years now I have an inexplicable pain in my left leg. When I have to make an effort to more than 70 per cent of my max, I have like a feeling of 'dead leg.'"

She has been visiting doctors for the last four years searching the reason to her problem.

"I was starting to get sick because I didn't understand why I had this pain, why I had very little strength, why I couldn't finish my workouts and too often, the races," she wrote.

"When I arrived on the races with very little workload I was getting away with it, but it was the worst when I arrived on the world cups with more fatigue and or at the Tour's Le Course, where I couldn't even pedal at 200 watts."

For now, she said she is "sad" not to be racing but "excited" about the doctors evaluation this coming December 12.

Former world road race champion Pauline Ferrand-Prevot has signed for Canyon-SRAM for the 2017 season, leaving Rabo-Liv after five seasons.

The 24-year-old has been restricted to just nine race days this season because of ongoing injury and illness. A stress fracture, allergies and sciatica all kept her from racing and training through the season, with the Frenchwoman saying she fell out of love with cycling at one point.

Ferrand-Prevot joins Anna van der Breggen in leaving Rabo-Liv, which will rebrand to Fortitude Pro Cycling next year, with the Dutchwoman joining Boels-Dolmans.

Ferrand-Prévot said: “After five great years spent with the best riders in the world I’m glad to announce I’ll be riding for Canyon/SRAM Racing next year. Thank you to Canyon and the team for giving me the opportunity to join a super talented and strong line-up, and believing in me for the coming years.”

Canyon/SRAM team manager Ronny Lauke said, "We are happy to welcome such a young but already proven athlete to our modern program. Pauline obviously has a lot of potential, and we believe with our international roster and our approach to the sport, that she can develop further. With her abilities to race in all areas Pauline has created a unique career already and it will bolster our already high quality in the team, especially in the mountains."

Former world road race champion Pauline Ferrand-Prevot has described her 'nightmare' of a 2016 season, which has seen her beset with injury and illness.

The 24-year-old Frenchwoman, who held the rainbow stripes for road cycling, cyclo-cross and mountain biking at the same time in 2015, has been restricted to just nine days of racing this year.

She sustained a stress fracture near her knee over the winter, admitting she tried to come back too soon from the setback, before going on to suffer with allergies, sciatica and a hard crash in the run up to the Olympics.

"The Olympics were the dream of a life, but also my biggest fear ever since I started my winter with this stress fracture," she wrote on Facebook, announcing the end of her season.

Allergies were brought on by a move to the south of France, which she tried to treat with a course of antibiotics, but was forced to take corticoids to clear up the problem, which meant she was forbidden from racing.

Then sciatica pain reappeared in her left leg, making training an ordeal as she said she didn't have the strength to exceed 200 watts. Two lumbar punctures later and the Rabo-Liv rider was still not back to full strength.

She was working towards riding both the road race and the mountain bike event at the Olympic Games, finishing 26th on the road and abandoning the cross-country race.

“Every day I woke up telling myself that it was one day less to the biggest appointment of my career. Being world champion in three disciplines in one year was maybe the worst thing that happened to me. Even though injured, I trained harder every day without laying down arms,” she said.

"In the end, I didn’t really make up for the lost time, even if I was very serious. These Olympics were the result of a year of hell.”

She concluded: “I’m finishing my season on an abandon. I don’t know when I’ll get back on a bike. Cycling was what I loved to do the most, but it’s become my biggest nightmare.”

Reigning world champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot will miss the cyclocross season this winter due to an injury picked up in training.

She tweeted saying that she'd fractured her tibial plateau, which meant farewell to her chances of defending her title.

"Knee injury: fracture of the tibial plateau. Farewell to my cyclo-cross season".

Her Rabo-Liv team tweeted to confirm that she would be inactive for six weeks.

The team went on to wish her well in her recovery.

The rider was, for a time this year, world champion on the road, in cyclocross and in cross country mountain biking.

She was unable to defend her road title, which was taken by Lizzie Armitstead, and now looks unlikely to be in the running for victory at the 'cross worlds.

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Recovery will be her key aim as she looks beyond the cyclocross season to the 2016 road racing calendar.

Next season will see launch of the Women's WorldTour, and the young French rider will be among the top picks to do well in the headline races.

Rabo-Liv will also have Marianne Vos back in their squad after her 2015 season was abadoned due to a string of injury woes. The Dutch team will be even more competitive when back up to full strength.

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The strength in depth in women's cycling has never been better and that's thanks in part to the huge number of young riders coming into the professional ranks.

Now, many of the best riders in the world are aged under 25, so here is a look at 10 of the hottest prospects in the peloton. Starting, and in no particular order, with a multi-discipline world champion...

Pauline Ferrand-Prevot

Calling Pauline Ferrand-Prevot a 'prospect' sounds a bit weird, given that she's been a world champion in three different disciplines and is still only 23 years old. Indeed, PFP is the only cyclist ever to hold the world road race title, world cross country title and world mountain bike title simultaneously.

Riding on the same Rabo-Liv team as Marianne Vos, Ferrand-Prevot risked being overshadowed by her fellow multi-discipline specialist, but the Frenchwoman has carved out quite a reputation for herself.

Her 2015 season was good, winning the French National Championships, a stage of the Giro d'Italia Feminile and a host of other top-10 finishes, but it paled in comparison to 2014.

Last year her palmares looked Vos-esque, with a Worlds road race win in tricky Ponferrada conditions, National Championship road race and time trial titles at both senior and U23 levels and a Flèche Wallonne win, to name but a few.

Ferrand-Prevot came close to defending her road race title in Richmond in September, but could not overcome Lizzie Armitstead on the line.

Hannah Barnes

In many ways, Hannah Barnes's progression through the cycling ranks has been benefitted by being based in the United States - out of the spotlight of the British media and surrounded by a thriving women's scene.

Barnes has started her season well in both of the years that she's ridden for UnitedHealtcare; in 2014 she won the first stage of the Tour de San Luis but crashed out of the race in the second stage. This year she won both of them and finished the race as the best young rider.

She picked up another stage win in her next race, the Silver City's Tour of the Gila, in May and won the youth classification again at the Women's Tour of California, thanks to third place on stage three.

Her strong form continued into June as she returned to home soil to ride the Aviva Women's Tour, winning the final stage to Hemel Hempstead and claiming fifth overall. That race saw her claim her third young rider jersey of the year.

Amalie Dideriksen

Amalie Dideriksen burst onto the scene in 2013 when she won the World Championships junior road race title, defending that jersey 12 months later.

Prior to that defence, aged just 18, she was victorious in the elite women's race at the Danish National Championships. Dideriksen signed with Armitstead's team, Boel-Dolmans, for 2015 and was thrown straight in at the deep end at the Tour of Qatar in February.

Her new team were also receptive to her desire to ride on the track at the 2016 Rio Olympics - she went straight to the World Track Championships in Paris after Qatar. There she finished 12th in the omnium, but turned in strong performances in the scratch race (second) and elimination race (fifth).

Retaining her Danish champion's jersey in 2015 was the start of a successful finish to her season as she took second overall in the Belgium Tour ahead of some of the biggest names in the women's peloton.

Katarzyna Niewiadoma

Another member of the Rabo-Liv squad, Niewiadoma won the youth classification in the UCI Women's World Cup series in 2015 and also excelled in stage racing this year.

First overall at the Euskal Emakumeen Bira was followed by fifth at the Giro Femminile and then fifth again at the Belgium Tour.

Seventh place in the Worlds road race proved she belongs in the high company she's been keeping this year, and with the likes of Vos and Ferrand-Prevot to help her along, Niewiadoma looks set for a very bright future.

Floortje Mackaij

Her ride at Ghent-Wevelgem in March will go down as one of the best by any rider, male or female, in 2015 because of the ludicrous conditions in which the raced.

Faced with gale-force winds that knocked grown men off their bikes, 19-year-old Mackaij powered through to take the title.

Riding for Liv-Plantur - the women's team affiliated with Giant-Alpecin - Mackaij defied her young age by taking stage wins at the GP Elsy Jacobs and the Belgium Tour, as well as a fifth-place finish on stage on of the Giro Femminile.

Sabrina Stultiens

Starting her season at Rabo-Liv, Stultiens transferred to Liv-Plantur in March, hoping to continue her development at the Dutch team.

While not setting the world alight with her new team in 2015, Stultiens showed her promise with strong performances at Auensteiner- Radsporttage and the Aviva Women's Tour, where she came fifth in the mountains classification.

Elena Cecchini

Elena Cecchini has been one of the busiest riders in the women's peloton in 2015, totalling 66 race days in a schedule that saw her race in every month between January and September.

She didn't waste many of those days either, starting her year with a second-place finish to Barnes in San Luis. She took in the Classics season as well in April, finishing fifth in the Tour of Flanders in a group that finished behind solo winner Elisa Longo-Borghini.

An Italian National Championships title was followed by three top-five finishes in the Giro Femminile, and her Lotto-Soudal sponsors will have been pleased with her fourth-place finish at the Tour of Belgium at the end of her long season.

Elisa Longo-Borghini

Longo-Borghini's first season at Wiggle-Honda could barely have been better, dominating in both stage and one-day races.

Her Tour of Flanders win kick-started her World Cup season, following it up with second to Armitstead in the Philly Classic. Her consistency in the World Cup races through the season saw her claim fourth in the overall standings.

In the stage races, Longo-Borghini finished eighth at the Giro Femminile and then took the overall title at the Route de France, winning two stages in the process.

Her impressive season was rounded off with fourth place in the Worlds road race, behind Armitstead, Anna van der Breggen and Megan Guarnier.

Amy Pieters

Joining Longo-Borghini at Wiggle-Honda next season is Amy Pieters, who moves from Liv-Plantur with her teammate Lucy Garner.

Pieters racked up 22 top-ten stage finishes in her multi-day events this season, with 14 more coming in her one-day races. A remarkable stretch of form in March saw her notch up seven consecutive top-tens, including an impressive fifth at Ghent-Wevelgem.

For all her consistency, Pieters only won one race in 2015 - the prologue of La Route de France - but her ability is there for all to see.

Jolanda Neff

Swiss mountain biker Jolanda Neff only raced four times on the road last season, but boy did she make it count.

She's pretty used to winning, notching up three wins in the six MTB World Cup races in 2015, with two seconds and one fourth. She translated that form onto the road midway through her season, claiming the elite women's road race title in Switzerland to win by nearly two minutes on the rest of the field.

Fast forward three months and she mixed it with the best riders in the world by finishing ninth in the World Championships in Richmond to prove her strong future on the road.

Marianne Vos has scrapped her targets for this season and will concentrate on recovery for the rest of the year. The three time road World Champion has been struggling with injury since the start of the year and this week announced she would prioritise her recovery.

The Dutch woman’s woes first manifested themselves in at the Hoogerheide round of the cyclo-cross World Cup, where she finished in a lowly 12th place. Though she recovered sufficiently to take bronze at the World Championships two weeks later, she has barely competed since.

Then, her performance was hindered by a hamstring injury, which she nurtured through the Spring, returning to road racing at the Ronde van Gelderland on April 14. She finished sixth there, but just days later crashed whilst previewing the course at the Haiming mountain bike race in Austria. Despite one further road race in mid-May, it seems the cumulative affect of the injuries have taken their toll on the 28 year old.

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The announcement on her Rabo-Liv team website stated, “Marianne does not yet feel fit enough to prepare thoroughly… In consultation with the management she decided the let go of the goals for this year and complete her recovery first.”

The 28 year old later tweeted, “Not an easy decision to skip the upcoming races, but I need more training time to be race ready again. Her return to competition is yet to be specified.”

Vos had intended to step back from the road slightly this season, instead racing mountain bike events to qualify for the Olympics in the discipline. Though she was not scheduled the defend her Aviva Women’s Tour title this month, she was selected to represent the Netherlands in the road race at the European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan. The Dutch team will now ride without her.

In a separate development, Vos's team mate and current road and cyclo-cross World Champion, Pauline Ferrand-Prevot abandoned the MTB World Cup race at Albstadt in Germany last weekend. The French woman has been suffering with sciatica from a back injury and has been told to rest for 10 days.

Cycling Weekly understands that Ferrand-Prevot was intending to ride the Aviva Women’s Tour, but that appearance must now be in jeopardy with the race starting in less than two weeks. Her participation at the Giro d’Italia Femminile next month, where she finished second behind Vos last year, is likely to go ahead.

Pauline Ferrand-Prevot added the elite women's cyclo-cross world title to her 2014 road race rainbow jersey on Saturday.

The Frenchwoman out-paced World Cup winner Sanne Cant (Belgium) in a two-up sprint in Tabor, Czech Republic, to seal the win.

Defending champion Marianne Vos (Netherlands) completed the podium in third at 15 seconds, with Britain's Nikki Harris just off the podium in fourth at 20 seconds.

British national champion Helen Wyman finished in seventh place.

Earlier in the day, Simon Andreassen took the junior men's world title for Denmark after riding away from his rivals.

Eli Iserbyt (Belgium) claimed silver, with Max Gulickx (Netherlands) in the bronze medal position.

William Gascoyne was top-placed British rider with a creditable 14th place.

Results

UCI Cyclo-Cross World Championships: Elite women

1. Pauline Ferrand-Prevot (Fra) in 49-11

2. Sanne Cant (Bel) at same time

3. Marianne Vos (Ned) at 15 secs

4. Nikki Harris (GBr) at 20 secs

5. Katerina Nash (Cze) at 236 secs

6. Lucy Chainel-Lefevere (Fra) at 55 secs

7. Helen Wyman (GBr) at 1-21

8. Ellen Van Loy (Bel) at 1-35

9. Christine Majerus (Lux) at 1-54

10. Sophie de Boer (Ned) at 1-56

Junior men

1. Simon Andreassen (Den)  in 42-24

2. Eli Iserbyt (Bel) at 40 secs

3. Max Gulickx (Ned) at 41 secs

4. Gage Hecht (USA) at 44 secs

5. Thijs Wolsink (Ned)  at 1-10

6. Stefano Sala (Ita) at 1-27

7. Jakob Dorigoni (Ita) at 1-30

8. Eddy Fine (Fra) at 1-34

9. Jarne Driesen (Bel) at 1-53

10. Stegen Van Der Roel (Ned)  at 1-58

Other

14. William Gascoyne (GBr) at 2-18

Marianne Vos’s Rabo-Liv team has been taking specialist descending classes this week as part of a pre-season training camp.

The Dutch team, including women’s road World Champion, Frenchwoman Pauline Ferrand-Prevot, hooked up with Spanish mountain biker, Oscar Saiz in the Spanish resort of Calpe.

The training isn’t all about going downhill as fast as possible, however. After a classroom session on Monday, the team moved to the hotel car park yesterday (Tuesday). Today the team will be putting the knowledge into practice on the roads around the team base.

‘It’s a good part of [rider] development,” Rabo-Liv team manger, Koos Moerenhout told Cycling Weekly. “On training camps, everybody trains long and hard, but when they go down the mountain everybody takes it easy until the next effort and the descent is not trained.”

“The riders have all the different skills, of course,” Moerenhout continued. “It’s how you handle being in a peloton, when they have high speed, that can be a problem for them, so we practise that as well as we can.”

Giant, whose Liv branded bikes the team use, also sponsor Saiz, and have employed him to provide this kind of training to both men’s and women’s teams for some years.

“Oscar has the ability to explain it in a funny way and he gives the girls a lot of information in a short time. It’s good, everybody is positive about it and he gives you exercises to take to home to keep practising.”

After their nine day training camp, Rabo-Liv begin their season at the Ladies Tour of Qatar in early February. However, both Vos and Ferrand-Prevot will miss that race, instead riding the Cyclo-Cross World Championships in the Czech Republic on January 31.

Vos’s first race on the road will be the inaugural edition of the women’s Strade-Bianche in early March, whilst Ferrand-Prevot will begin at the second road World Cup race in Italy at the end of the same month.

Saiz has also worked with the Belkin team and FDJ's Thibaut Pinot to help help improve their descending abilities.

France's Pauline Ferrand-Prevot thanked the Germans and her Dutch trade team RaboLiv for helping her get her World Championship title in Ponferrada, Spain, today.

"I never expected to win," Ferrand-Prevot said. "I was lucky that the German team rode for me. I had a very good lead-out from them, thank you!"

The 22-year-old added a rainbow jersey to her win in the Flèche Wallonne this April to close a very successful 2014 season. Though racing in France's blue colours, she normally wears the orange colours of trade team RaboLiv, which includes three-time champion Marianne Vos.

"I was on the wheel of Vos for the sprint. When we saw her and the other three come back with one kilometre to go, I knew I had to stay on Marianne's wheel. The wind came from the left side, and I went to the right side. I sprinted and I didn't look back. I didn't expect to win a sprint in the world championships,” continued Ferrand-Prevot.

"I thought the podium was lost, to be honest, when the group was away with Vos. I did not think our group would able to catch them, but the Germans worked hard. I am not a pure sprinter, but I followed Vos at two hundred metres and I was able to go around her."

Vos won the last two years in Florence and Valkenburg, and in Salzburg in 2006. The 2014 edition was the first time since 2006 that she did not at least take a medal.

"I don't think she was less strong today. Everyone was watching her, so it's not easy for her," Ferrand-Prevot added.

"I learned a lot from racing with Marianne the past three years. I want to say thank you to all the team-mates at RaboLiv team, they've taught me a lot."

Pauline Ferrand Prevot wins women's road race world title

Pauline Ferrand Prevot takes women's road race World Championships win as Lizzie Armitstead and Marianne Vos cancel each other out

Pauline Ferrand Prevot (France) won the elite women’s road race at the 2014 UCI Road World Championships in a tight sprint finish.

She inched out both time-trial champion Lisa Brennauer (Germany) and Emma Johansson (Sweden) into second and third, with Giorgia Bronzini (Italy) a narrow fourth.

Great Britain’s Lizzie Armitstead finished seventh while defending champion Marianne Vos (Netherlands) could only manage tenth.

Just minutes before, however, it looked as though both were guaranteed top four finishes, as they approached the line with just Johansson and Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy) for company. The quartet broke clear on the final climb and opened up what looked like a decisive lead, but slowed considerably as they began cat and mouse, allowing a sizable chasing group to catch them in the finale.

Neither of the four wanted to lead-out the sprint, and as a result all missed out on gold, although Johansson managed to recompose herself for the sprint to gain bronze.

Vos also appeared to be in a good position come that sprint, and took to the front with a few hundred metres to go. However she did not show the kind of strength we have grown used to seeing her display, perhaps due to fatigue from the attack, and faded to her lowest finish since 2005.

Ferrand Prevot made the wise move of following her wheel in the sprint, and managed to hold her speed for just about long enough to hold off Johansson and Brennauer, who were finishing very quickly to the right of her.

In a post-race interview, Armitstead proclaimed her disappointment at how easy the race had been, and indeed proceedings were subdued for long periods. Before the tense endgame, only an attack from Eveyln Stevens (USA) at 12 kilometres from the finish drew out favourites Armitstead and Vos, while early attacks were limited to a few doomed solo efforts from outsiders like Shani Bloch (Israel), Spela Kern (Slovenia) and Alison Powers (USA).

Armitstead also struggled with a lack of teammates, as demonstrated when the strong Dutch, Italian and German teams put her under pressure in the final lap. A dangerous looking move featuring Rossella Ratto (Italy), Rachel Neylan (Australia) and Chantel Blaak (Netherlands) got away at the bell and forced the weaker teams to chase, wearing them down for the finale.

Armitstead had used up Anna Christian and Hannah Barnes earlier in an attempt to liven the race with some attacks, while Annie Last and Lucy Garner were caught out in crashes earlier on. Another huge crash disrupted the peloton on the second lap, in which Vos and Bronzini were delayed by, but both were allowed to catch back on as the peloton dropped its pace.

Some rainfall on the penultimate lap caused worries that more crashes may disrupt the finale of the race, but it thankfully eased off by the final lap.

Result
UCI Road World Championships 2014: Elite women's road race, 127.4km
1. Pauline Ferrand-Prevot (Fra) in 3-29-21

2. Lisa Brennauer (Ger)

3. Emma Johansson (Swe)

4. Giorgia Bronzini (Ita)

5. Tiffany Cromwell (Aus)

6. Shelley Olds (USA)

7. Lizzie Armitstead (GBr)

8. Linda Villumsen (NZl)

9. Hanna Solovey (Ukr)

10. Marianne Vos (Ned) all same time

More on the 2014 Road World Championships

Credit: Andy Jones

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