“I really like cycling, it’s my life. I can’t say I really like racing but I like winning. Maybe it’s a bit pretentious to say this, but I race because I love to win,” Pauline Ferrand-Prévot told a captivated crowd at Rouleur Live 2025.
An Olympic gold medal, a yellow jersey and a Roubaix cobblestone; Ferrand-Prévot’s trophy cabinet is unique in the world of cycling. Those prizes were all claimed in the last 18 months of a career that started over a decade ago. Also on her palmarès: Elite World Championship titles over road, mountain bike and cyclocross.
In recent years cycling fans have been spoilt by the multi-discipline talents; from the likes of Marianne Vos and Puck Pieterse on the women’s side to Mathieu van der Poel and Tom Pidcock on the men’s, the stars over the dirt, gravel and mud are often the protagonists on the road too. Ferrand-Prévot might just be the best example of this, something she attributes to her upbringing doing several disciplines: “As a child I was very scared to be bored, so I did everything.”
This approach of different goals and challenges has kept her enjoying the sport. She revealed to the Rouleur Live crowd that her decision to race the Queen of the Classics, Paris-Roubaix Femmes avec Zwift came off the back of this attitude: “I was a bit bored, so I asked my team if I could do Paris-Roubaix!”
The Roubaix win was the first half of a miraculous double in her home country’s two most important races, the second being the Tour de France Femmes. When Ferrand-Prévot won the Grand Boucle she became the first French yellow jersey winner since Bernard Hinault in 1985. It was the biggest result of her glistening career, and came after only returning to the road in January.
Ferrand-Prévot grew up with cycling as a constant — family rides, local races, and the Tour de France on television every summer, but not for the women.
“I was training crazy hours even when I was young. I love training and love trying to be better. But, I was watching the Tour de France and I really wanted to be a boy. When I told my mother that I would like to be a professional cyclist, she said ‘first you have to go to school’. Women’s cycling wasn’t as developed as it is now. It’s a different sport now, it’s much more professional. It’s totally different,” said Ferrand-Prévot.
As women’s racing slowly gained more and more ground into the 2010s, she watched its development from inside the sport, not from the sidelines. Her return to the road after years focused on mountain bike and cyclocross titles wasn’t a nostalgic move, it was born out of the same desire for a new challenge: “I didn’t see myself continuing in mountain biking for another four years.”
She wanted a new target, and the road felt unfinished. But most importantly, thanks to the development of the sport, there was a goal bigger than anything else to set her sights on: the Tour.
“I came back [to the road] to win the Tour,” said Ferrand-Prévot.
Rejoining the women’s peloton showed her how much had changed: the depth of the field, the speed, and the tactical sharpness.
“I was thinking: ‘maybe I made the wrong choice because it was so fast!’” admitted the Frenchwoman.
Choosing Visma–Lease a Bike was a calculated move. She wanted a structure proven to win big races, and riding with Marianne Vos offered a chance to learn and collaborate rather than compete internally. Balancing two major riders could have been an issue, which did require some ironing out initially.
“I didn’t want to be in her way, and she didn’t want to be in my way,” said Ferrand-Prévot. “We found a good way to work together at the Tour. We spent a lot of time together in camp. We really want to learn together.”
“[I chose Visma because] I need my freedom. I am 33 years old, I have stuff to learn but I have a lot of experience. It’s a young team with younger athletes. You really want to work together. It’s why we won as a team because we wanted to learn and win together.”
Preparing for the Tour meant restructuring her training — longer efforts, more specific work, and a strict routine. But Ferrand-Prévot said she was used to pressure from Olympic and world championship campaigns. Her preparation isn’t just in the miles on the roads, dirt and gravel: “Before the Olympics, I was working with a psychologist. Mentally it is as demanding as it is physically.”
But even still the Tour demanded a different kind of attention, more focused on the longer climbs and the pressure of a home nation waiting for its champion.
Has the victory changed her?
“I don’t know?” Ferrand-Prévot rhetorically asked. “Maybe I feel more confident that I feel like I can win on the road.” There we go: one of cycling’s understatements of the century.
