'It's why I came back to the road' — Pauline Ferrand-Prévot is a wild card GC threat at the Tour de France Femmes

She’s conquered every other discipline. Now, Ferrand-Prévot takes on her first Tour de France Femmes.

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Pauline Ferrand Prevot
(Image credit: Getty Images)

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.”

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

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

“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.”

Anne-Marije Rook
Anne-Marije Rook
North American Editor

Cycling Weekly's North American Editor, Anne-Marije Rook is old school. She holds a degree in journalism and started out as a newspaper reporter — in print! She can even be seen bringing a pen and notepad to the press conference.

Originally from the Netherlands, she grew up a bike commuter and didn't find bike racing until her early twenties when living in Seattle, Washington. Strengthened by the many miles spent darting around Seattle's hilly streets on a steel single speed, Rook's progression in the sport was a quick one. As she competed at the elite level, her journalism career followed, and soon, she became a full-time cycling journalist. She's now been a journalist for two decades, including 12 years in cycling.

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