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"She can win the Tour de France Femmes" - Big expectations for Pauline Ferrand-Prévot after full-time switch to road racing is confirmed
CyclingTuesday, 30 July 2024 at 22:00
The greatest of all time in women's mountain bike, the legendary Pauline Ferrand-Prévot had just one goal left to achieve in the sport and last weekend the Frenchwoman finally succeeded, taking the Olympic gold medal in front of her adoring compatriots in Paris.
Afterwards, the 32-year-old, who claimed the road race World Championship title back in 2014 in Ponferrada, confirmed her intentions to give up mountain bike and concentrate full time on a career on the road. Front and centre of her medium to long term goals, the Maillot Jaune at the Tour de France Femmes.
"She can win the Tour de France Femmes," predicts the Grand Tour's race director and former French national champion in her own right, Marion Rousse in conversation with Le Parisien. "She has the advantage of having previously come from the road, it's not as if she came from mountain biking or cyclocross. She's got the body. I saw that her mountain bike coach had compared her data with what's done on the road, and it seems that she's quite competitive. With her mentality and everything she's already achieved, we can only believe in her success."
"My future plans for road cycling will be official in the second week of August. I have a nice project that will help me focus on the Tour de France [Femmes] in the coming years. I have now won Olympic gold, but I still have some goals," Ferrand-Prevot herself said after winning her mountain bike gold, with the former INEOS Grenadiers rider rumoured to be joining partner Dylan van Baarle in the colours of Team Visma | Lease a Bike for 2025 and beyond as she focuses on her road racing career.
The last time the Frenchwoman competed on the road was back in 2021 at the French National Championships, finishing 5th in the time-trial and 12th in the road race. As mentioned though, as a former world champion and a winner of La Fleche Wallonne Feminine in 2014, Ferrand-Prevot has proven her pedigree in the past.
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- yeah, that’s a more fair assessment. “reaching mathieu’s level” doesn’t mean you’re planning to replicate his whole career. the former IS doable, potentially. it’s just the latter that likely is not.OCexile25-12-2024
- That’s not entirely true. Every person follows their own development path and peaks differently. Remco and Primoz had hardly started cycling before elite level. Jonas was pretty much under the radzr until he unexpectedly had to take over responsibility at JV. Some guys only get real good in their thirties others have peaked mid-twenties. You can’t tell in advance how and upto what level they will progress, obviously his career might not have MVDPs length but nothing says he could not end up doing a few seasons at his level.Mistermaumau25-12-2024
- well, del grosso is 21 right now. when mathieu was a year younger than that, he was already winning elite level world championships, not U23. i think del grosso will be a very good pro for years, but if he was really going to be the next van der poel someday, he’d already have to be at that level right NOW. van der poel was showing signs of true greatness when he was 15-16. THAT’S what generational talent looks like.OCexile25-12-2024
- Yeah.... gear 😅.mikolajjj24-12-2024
- It shouldn’t be about expectations in the first place should it? Besides, if you look at everyone’s calculations as a whole they don’t add up in the first place. There’ll be 2-3 riders with a 50% chance, a dozen with 10 or 20% and dozens more with a 5% so we’re expecting at least 2 if not 3 winners. Remind me again who won before her? Says it all about using data to decide on participation.Mistermaumau24-12-2024
- Ok, happy I’m not too interested in this team coz’ the account of what happened is really hard to follow.Mistermaumau24-12-2024
- The UCI is worse than USA CyclingVeganpotter24-12-2024
- It's not like they wanted her to not win😅 She had an outstanding Olympics. But there's a reason why she wasn't expected to win the road race and that's ok. Things like this happen and it's great...better than seeing expected winners win.Veganpotter24-12-2024
- Bruyneel ? The man with a lifetime ban from cycling...why do you keep giving him and his doper mate, Armstrong, a platform?DJ24-12-2024
- yeah, agree. on the subject of being a “complete rider,” i do think that’s getting more interesting. mathieu seems to have decided he wants to get much better at climbing the the high mountain passes. he appears to be looking for new challenges, which should be interesting to watch. in most cases you’d dismiss a goal like that at age 30, but it’s mvdp. he’s never going to climb with the real climbers, but if he can improve enough it could open up stage wins when the parcours isnt just purely toothy and punchy.OCexile24-12-2024