Pauline Ferrand-Prévot is the first French winner of the Tour de France since Jeannie Longo in 1989. The rider of Visma-Lease a Bike went from Olympic gold on the mountain bike to the yellow jersey in one year. “She is very special.”
When Ferrand-Prévot was a child, she told her mother Sylviane that she wanted to be a boy. Her big dream was to ride the Tour de France, which was not possible as a woman.
Years later, in the queen stage of the fourth edition of the Tour de France Femmes, mother and daughter see each other 6 kilometers from the top of the Col de la Madeleine. Sylviane gives a bidon to Ferrand-Prévot. Shortly afterwards, she also receives a bottle from her father Dany.
“I didn’t want to look at Papa and Mamma,” Ferrand-Prévot said after the stage on French television. “Because I knew I would cry then.”
The 33-year-old Frenchwoman more than fulfills her childhood dream on a Saturday afternoon in the Alps. She doesn’t just ride the Tour, she dominatés it. On the Madeleine she wins the stage and takes the yellow jersey. In the final stage on Sunday, the leader of Visma-Lease a Bike confirms her dominance by being the first to cross the finish line again.
The overall victory is somewhat of a surprise, as Ferrand-Prévot is focusing on road cycling again for the first time since 2018 this season. At the same time, it is a predictable result. “We know that Pauline is capable of doing crazy things,” says teammate Femke de Vries. “If she really has a goal, she can always rise above herself.”
Jumbo-Visma (the current Visma-Lease a Bike) started a women’s team five years ago with only one goal. The Dutch formation had to become the best team in the world, just like the men.
Signing cycling icon Marianne Vos was a good start, but a classification topper for the major tours was missing. Until Visma attracted Ferrand-Prévot last year.
The fifteen-time world champion won Olympic gold on the mountain bike last summer after a years-long project. In the likely final chapter of her impressive career, she wanted to return to the road.
“We have worked hard in recent years with the women’s team to become stronger as a team,” says team boss Richard Plugge of Visma-Lease a Bike. “Because we know from the men’s team that that can make the difference in cycling.”
“But of course you also need an exceptional talent like Pauline to finish it. She is a world athlete. She learns so quickly, listens very well, picks up everything she needs and is also a leader. Pauline is a phenomenon to work with.”
Ferrand-Prévot apologizes three days before the Tour start during a digital press conference. “I have no idea if I have ever ridden a stage race of nine days,” she says.
That’s not that strange. Ferrand-Prévot started once in a major tour before this season and that was the Giro d’Italia of 2015. In the past six seasons, she has focused on mountain biking, a completely different discipline than being a classification rider on the road.
“A mountain bike race lasts a maximum of an hour and a half. On the road you have to stay focused much longer,” says Ferrand-Prévot. “And I especially had to work on the super long climbs, because that is the most important part of the Tour.”
Ferrand-Prévot bought a house at altitude in Andorra so that she could train in the mountains every day. She lost 3 to 4 kilos after the spring to be as light as possible during the Tour. And she explored all the mountain stages. “I even went to the Madeleine twice. I wanted to know exactly where I could accelerate and where I could recover. I think that’s very important.”
According to Jos van Emden, that professionalism is the secret behind all the successes of ‘PFP’. “Pauline has a very tough head and can work very hard. That makes the difference,” says the Visma team leader. “She is just very special.”
Ferrand-Prévot is the first French winner of the Tour since Longo in 1989, when the tour was still called the Tour de France Féminin. In the men’s race, the home country has been waiting forty years for a winner of the Tour de France (Bernard Hinault, 1985).
The popularity of Ferrand-Prévot in her own country was already immense. In the past nine days she has become even bigger. “A queen,” the leading French sports newspaper L’Équipe headlined on Saturday after the coup on the Madeleine.
“There were a lot of people along the side of the road during this Tour with a sign saying that Pauline should become president,” says Van Emden. Laughing: “I think we’re only going to see that more from now on.”