Paris-Roubaix Femmes 2025 will be remembered for Pauline Ferrand-Prévot’s dazzling debut win, but in the aftermath, it was the comments from the peloton that painted the clearest picture of how the race unfolded — not just on the cobbles but in the minds of those who fought for control and came up short. The different perspectives tell a story of physical effort and diverging tactical plans, internal roles, and what happens when the unexpected reshapes the race.
“We did everything we could”: SD Worx-Protime reflect on missed chances
For SD Worx-Protime, pre-race favourites with the reigning Roubaix champion and the European Champion in their lineup, a third-place finish wasn’t the target. Lorena Wiebes admitted she had “mixed feelings” after finishing behind Letizia Borghesi in the sprint for second. “At the end of the race, out of nowhere, I cramped a bit in my legs when they attacked in the last four kilometres, but today I could not afford to get fourth,” she explained.
Wiebes insisted there were no team disagreements, but her comments hinted at underlying tension: “I didn’t say to Lotte not to attack. I only said to her, not to attack when I’m leading at the front.”
Lotte Kopecky, the defending champion, acknowledged their tactics hadn’t worked. “We tried to have a hard race, but we missed the most important attack,” she said. “From that moment on, we knew it would be pretty hard.” She praised Ferrand-Prévot’s timing but admitted that once Visma-Lease a Bike got a rider up the road, “all the work was up to us”.
Both riders circled around the same theme: they gambled, tried to manage with limited team presence, and came away disappointed. As Kopecky put it: “Sometimes you’re disappointed with third, but I think we should be happy and focus on the next race.”
Photo Credit: EF Education-Oatly“She went, and we couldn’t follow”: EF Education-Oatly respect the move
If SD Worx-Protime went away with regret, EF Education-Oatly leaned into pride. Letizia Borghesi and Alison Jackson both featured prominently in the race’s finale, and though they didn’t win, their reflections were full of satisfaction.
Borghesi, who had suffered a flat earlier in the day, managed to ride back into contention before launching a successful late move to claim second. “When I came back to the first group, I tried already a couple of moves and that group was racing really aggressively. SD Worx was trying to control the gap but it was not easy,” she explained. “Pauline went away, and at that moment,t we couldn’t follow her.”
Jackson echoed that honesty: “Leti really wanted it and went for the counter attack at one kilometre to go. I just sat in behind the chase, cheering her on, as she went solo into the velodrome.” In contrast to the more guarded language from SD Worx-Protime, the EF riders were quick to accept Ferrand-Prévot’s superiority while highlighting how they made the most of their opportunity.
Photo Credit: Getty“I just tried to survive”: Ferrand-Prévot plays down strength on the day
While others were speaking of missed chances and team dynamics, Ferrand-Prévot sounded almost surprised by her own triumph. “This was my first time, and maybe the last! I just tried to survive on the cobbled sections,” she said repeatedly. Her initial plan, she insisted, was to support Marianne Vos. “I wasn’t even sure this morning whether to participate… I said I’ll do my best for Marianne. Finally I took the start and it’s amazing.”
Her modesty added a layer of irony to the comments from teams that had carefully built their day around tightly controlled tactics. For Visma-Lease a Bike, the strength in numbers gave them options — but in Ferrand-Prévot’s account, she just seized the moment when it presented itself.
Vos, who rode as a loyal lieutenant in the final kilometres, called the result “fantastic” and underlined how smoothly the team operated. “Pauline went at a really good moment. She wasn’t 100 percent fit, but she made it stick.”
It was a stark contrast to the frustration voiced by SD Worx-Protime. Wiebes wondered whether, with one more rider, things might have turned out differently. Kopecky questioned her own reaction timing, hinting that fatigue played a role. Yet Ferrand-Prévot, caught in an unexpected situation after her crash, simply attacked.
Photo Credit: Cor Vos“I had to claw my way back”: Georgi and Norsgaard highlight the cost of chaos
Behind the front of the race, riders like Pfeiffer Georgi and Emma Norsgaard also offered insights into what made this edition of Roubaix so hard to control. Georgi, forced to change bikes after a puncture before Orchies and later crashing, still managed to finish 13th. “It was about chasing from group to group and clawing my way back. I was on the limit at that point, made a mistake and just slipped out,” she said.
Norsgaard, who briefly led the race before Ferrand-Prévot attacked, admitted she had already felt her energy slipping when the Frenchwoman came past. “I was still dreaming when she dropped me that I could pull off the roof… I just want to cry. I think it’s absolutely disgusting, this race.”
Both riders’ comments cut through the grandeur of the event to reveal the attrition underneath. For Georgi, the chaos made her 13th-place finish feel like a moral victory. For Norsgaard, the dream of a solo win evaporated in seconds.
“You can’t react to everything”: a common theme
Whether from the dominant teams or the underdogs, one idea kept reappearing: you can’t cover everything. Wiebes said it directly. Jackson acknowledged it. Even Kopecky, known for her race sense, implied that they’d stretched too far trying to cover too much.
The result was a rare situation where a team other than SD Worx-Protime or Lidl-Trek dictated the outcome. Visma-Lease a Bike, with three riders in the lead group, didn’t need to force anything once Ferrand-Prévot was away. Other teams did, and they simply ran out of answers.
It wasn’t a story of a team overpowering the race — it was a rider seeing a moment, taking it, and everyone else blinking.
Roubaix rarely fits the script, and this edition only underlined that further. When one of the sport’s most versatile riders said she was here to ride for someone else, then rode everyone else off her wheel, the entire peloton was left recalibrating what just happened. The quotes told the story: respect for the winner, frustration at missed moments, and above all, the understanding that in Paris-Roubaix, control is just an illusion.
