"My helmet saved my life" - How Tour de France Femmes hero Maeva Squiban bounced back from near-fatal training crash in May to back-to-back stage wins in August
Cycling
There is little doubt about who has been the breakout star of the 2025 Tour de France Femmes. With back-to-back solo wins on stage 7 and stage 8, UAE Team ADQ's Maeva Squiban has powered herself right into the thick of the action.
Having soloed to the stage 6 success from the breakaway on Thursday afternoon, becoming just the second Frenchwoman to win a Tour de France Femmes stage and the first UAE Team ADQ rider in the process, Squiban attacked from the flag drop on stage 7, and after having been joined by a few other riders in the breakaway, the French star kicked again on the final climb of the day, going solo all the way to the finish line.
Two extraordinary performances, but when you take into account what happened to Squiban just a few months before the start of the 2025 Tour de France Femmes, these performances are made even more spectacular. During a training ride in May, Squiban was hit by a car in a near-fatal accident.
"My helmet saved my life," she wrote following her fall on Instagram. "I'm doing well. I have a neck brace and some pain, but nothing's broken."
Just 77 days later however, Squiban announced herself to the wider cycling world in style with her first Tour de France Femmes stage win. "It wasn't easy after the accident, even if it's now just a distant memory," she reflected of her road to recovery in conversation with France Télévisions afterwards. "The team always told me not to worry, that I was going to do the Tour."
A Breton rider, this year's Tour de France Femmes also gave Squiban some extra motivation. "It's always been a goal, especially with the start in Brittany. That's what kept me motivated," she explained. "I thank them for having faith in me, I'm giving it back to them."
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Kieran WoodDeputy Editor-in-Chief
Kieran Wood is a sports journalist based in Wales and has been active in journalism since 2022. He regularly contributes to DartsNews.com and CyclingUpToDate.com, where he covers professional cycling and darts. In cycling, his work includes liveblogs from major races, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España, alongside race reports and analysis. He has also conducted interviews with professional riders.
His reporting spans the full racing calendar, from one-day classics to stage races, with a focus on accurate, real-time coverage and clear contextual analysis. For statistics, results, and historical context, he regularly uses resources such as ProCyclingStats. To support reporting on rider activity and training context where relevant, he also references Strava.
In his work, Kieran places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles as new, verified information becomes available.
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- He should have been allowed to go to Movistar. Right now both arent a good fit for each other and are just wasting each other's time and effortabstractengineer08-11-2026
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Rafionain-Glas08-11-2026 - i did not see it. was the relegation justified or an overly hard decision? and don‘t cross riders deviate from straight lines all the time? bumping into each others when they cut corners, etc … why being more strict with the rules on the finish sprint?Ketterechts08-11-2026
- seems like we are advertising the website with pointless comments…Ketterechts08-11-2026
- So?Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- The UCI do have their favorites.
Front24208-11-2026 - On a positive note, you maybe notice turning this topic into a discussion has the benefit of eliminating certain participants who do not see how they can turn it back to their sole interest ;-)Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- People see what they want to. I am actually the opposite of your accusation, probably more of a rebel than most of you who don’t get the big picture. The difference is, I don’t go moaning publicly about the consequences of my transgressions, I understand the need for rules and I take my OWN responsibility when deciding to ignore or break them or doing so involuntarily. I will also not hesitate to state my case or argue vehemently when relevant, sometimes it works, sometimes it makes things worse but that’s the price to pay for principles and having character.Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- That may be but that was unknown to others and nothing says that’s the whole truth. Again, don’t try to misinterpret, it is a call and technically it is correct. Besides, even if there is a valid reason, that does not disqualify the ruling or punishment as far as the rules have been developed. I don’t think they’re as far as in football where for handball there is a distinction (in some ways and specific cases) between intentional or not. And football can be just as harsh and people live with it, eg the offside rule, also judged to within tiny fractions but often wrong or ignored. It’s the nature of every collective organisation and sometimes I wonder if our rebellion against it isn’t seated in the feelings we carry from the injustices we’ve felt personally, like being flashed driving 1km/h too fast when we are explained limits are just a security measure but we are absolutely certain not to have endangered anyone with our transgression. The problem is, nobody has better solutions and no 2 people have the same interpretation of where a limit should be.Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- Because for you deviated implies the other rider MUST have been made to fall and fail to finish ??? I don’t know if you ride a bike but next time someone carves you up or drives dangerously close, just hold back from those feelings of changing something, reporting or filming or even complaining. Everyone will just say, hey you’re still here undamaged, doesn’t seem like anyone did anything.Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
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