Pauline Ferrand-Prévot has spent the last twelve months turning an ambitious comeback into something far bigger than a successful return. After winning Paris-Roubaix and then taking overall victory at the Tour de France Femmes in her first season back on the road, the French rider is beginning 2026 with a different kind of pressure: she is no longer the outsider, and she is not pretending otherwise.
“Last season I started the Tour as an outsider, but that will be different next season,” Ferrand-Prévot said in a Team Visma | Lease a Bike Women interview. “I have to be ready to start as one of the favourites in the biggest races from now on.”
The shift from breakthrough to expectation
Ferrand-Prévot’s 2025 season was framed internally as a year of learning, even as the results suggested something closer to immediate mastery. She said the speed of that adaptation was built on team support as much as individual level.
“I can’t wait to go all in again with my teammates,” she said. “We have a strong group of motivated riders, and compared to last season we’ve taken more steps forward. That’s great to see. For me, 2025 was a year full of learning, but I pick up new things quickly. The support from the staff and my teammates meant I was able to reach a high level very fast.”
The language matters. It is not framed as defending a title by holding what she already has, but by continuing to build.
Consistency is the next target, not motivation
For all the scale of her 2025 wins, Ferrand-Prévot’s most specific goal for 2026 is not a particular race, but a standard.
“Last season I was very good on several occasions, but I still want to work on my consistency,” she said. “My goal is to fight for the very top in every race I start.”
That is a harder ambition than it sounds. Winning big races is partly about peaking. Being present at the top across an entire season is about durability, recovery, and the ability to deliver on different parcours without needing everything to align.
Ferrand-Prévot was candid that the podium count has only sharpened her appetite.
“I finished on the podium many times in 2025, but secretly I want to win more,” she said.
The Tour remains the centre of gravity
Team Visma | Lease a Bike Women has been clear that the Tour de France Femmes remains the main objective, and Ferrand-Prévot’s own comments reinforce that. She set herself a three-year goal to win the Tour, then achieved it immediately, which changes the psychological framing of the next attempt.
“The Tour was the most important race we could win. It was an amazing team performance,” she said. “I will do everything I can to defend my title.”
The course details she highlighted point to how she intends to do it, through preparation rather than rhetoric.
Photo Credit: ASOTime trial focus, Ventoux anticipation, and a home finale
The 2026 Tour includes an individual time trial, and Ferrand-Prévot has already identified it as a key performance lever.
“The Tour route includes an individual time trial, and I see that as a great challenge too,” she said. “Time trialling suited me well in the past, but it’s definitely a discipline I can still improve. That’s why I’ll be spending a lot of time on the time-trial bike in the build-up to the Tour.”
She also singled out two stages for personal emphasis: the climb to Mont Ventoux, and the final stage, which she described as being close to home.
“I’m also especially looking forward to the stage to Mont Ventoux. I’ve also marked the final stage, close to my home, as a major goal,” she said.
Those references sketch a rider thinking about the race in concrete terms: not simply “defend the jersey”, but identify the places where the race is likely to turn.
Pressure as fuel, not threat
Ferrand-Prévot has never been shy about expectation, but she was unusually explicit about how she responds to it.
“The high expectations for the coming year give me extra motivation to improve,” she said. “I perform better when there’s pressure, so I see very little negative in those expectations. I’m absolutely ready to give the best of myself again.”
In 2025, she arrived as the story. In 2026, she arrives as the standard – and the challenge is no longer proving that she belongs, but proving she can hold the top of the sport with the same authority she reached it.
