Pauline Ferrand-Prévot made her highly-anticipated return to highway racing with Visma-Lease a Bike on the UAE Tour final month however mentioned that was only a warm-up and that her first huge goal will happen at Strade Bianche in Siena on Saturday.
The French multi-discipline champion signed a three-year contract with the Dutch workforce by way of to the top of 2027, in what was a highly-publicised switch from Ineos Grenadiers’ off-road workforce.
The 15-time elite World Champion and 2024 mountain biking Olympic Champion has now dedicated to the highway full-time, and whereas she started her season on the UAE Tour, she mentioned her focus was on Strade Bianche, the revived Milan-San Remo Girls and sooner or later, the Tour de France Femmes.
On the four-day UAE Tour, Ferrand-Prévot completed seventeenth general, 5:18 behind general winner Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Staff ADQ). Requested if she was disillusioned along with her efficiency, she mentioned, “In no way.”
“I used to be not anticipating a lot from the UAE Tour; simply to be again within the bunch and with my teammates to get to know one another.”
Ferrand-Prévot mentioned that she has been steadily making ready particularly for the Spring Classics, with Strade Bianche as her first main race that she goals to do nicely at amongst her rivals within the peloton.
“Tomorrow would be the first take a look at of the season. If I do not do nicely tomorrow, perhaps I can be a bit disillusioned as a result of I skilled laborious for it. However the UAE Tour was only a warm-up.”
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The ladies’s peloton will compete throughout a 136km race that options one further gravel sector this 12 months for a complete of 50km cut up throughout 13 sectors of off-road – a route that ought to completely swimsuit gravel and mountain bike specialists within the discipline comparable to Ferrand-Prévot and Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Alpecin).
Ferrand-Prévot mentioned that seeing increasingly mountain bike riders competing on the highway and for top-tier groups has been good and that they may have a slight benefit at a race like Strade Bianche.
“Sure … it isn’t the identical approach or dealing with on the bike however, for certain, we’re used to this, and never petrified of the velocity. I believe it is good that extra MTB riders are coming in and may present the MTB self-discipline,” she mentioned.
Ferrand-Prévot made historical past within the 2014-2015 season on the age of 23 when she grew to become the primary bicycle owner to carry world titles within the three disciplines concurrently. She received the elite ladies’s highway race world title in 2014 Ponferrada, the XCO cross-country world title in 2015 in Vallnord, and the cyclo-cross world title in 2015 in Tabor. Since then, she has amassed a complete of 15 elite world titles throughout highway, mountain bike, cyclocross and gravel.
Though she hasn’t raced a full highway season since 2018, exterior of competing on the French Street Championships in 2019 and 2021, she can be a key rider to observe on the 2025 Girls’s WorldTour, and definitely at Strade Bianche this weekend.
“I’ve ready myself very nicely [for Strade Bianche], and it is why I’ve good motivation for tomorrow,” she mentioned.
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