Pauline Ferrand-Prévot wore a yellow hairband as she started stage eight of the 2025 Tour de France. It was subtle foreshadowing, perhaps, for what she was about to do to this race. This is a former world and Olympic champion. This is a woman who knows what it takes to perform when it matters, who can balance the pressure of the Tour de France Femmes queen stage, who can carry the weight of a nation on her shoulders and win their hearts a few hours later. When Ferrand-Prévot eventually made her detonating attack on the Col de la Madeleine, and Sarah Gigante was distanced from her rear wheel, the French crowds watching on a screen at the summit of the fabled erupted with joy. This was their champion. This is their maillot jaune. This was a fairytale ending.
“A little girl’s dream came true today,” Ferrand-Prévot said in her post-race press conference.
It was not just her dream, however, but the dream of a country. The same country she delighted in just one year ago when she won the Olympic cross-country race in Paris. Twelve months on, the Visma-Lease a Bike woman has done it again in the most dominant, stylish, unquestionable fashion.
“The Olympics were my career objective – that was the victory I wanted more than anything. I gave myself three years to try and win the Tour de France. It was a challenge, really, a challenge to see if I could do it. Voilà, I know there’s still another stage, and I haven’t won yet, but to wear this yellow jersey is an amazing feeling.”
The maillot jaune, just like the gold medal, is the glitz and the glamour of the job. It’s the flashing lights, it’s the attention and it is the stardom. What Ferrand-Prévot knows better than anyone, however, is how hard it is to reach these moments in this sport. What you don’t see, as she stands on the podium in front of adoring fans atop the Madeleine, is the hard work and the dedication that has got her here. According to those closest to the French rider, it all comes from a dogged drive for success and razor-sharp focus.
“She’s hard as a rock. Dedicated. That’s it,” her sports director, Jos van Emden, told Rouleur after the race. “We were aiming for this but you always have to prove that you are capable. We were hoping. I don’t feel her legs and feel how tired they are after seven days of racing but we knew she was special. All week she is quite confident, but still, it is the Madeleine, you can be confident and still get dropped. It is one of the hardest climbs and you have to be in top shape and she is. She has shown she is.”
Ferrand-Prévot’s teammates also pointed to 33-year-old’s strength of character as imperative to her sporting success. Marianne Vos, an 11-time world champion, lauded her colleague’s diligent commitment to her vocation. Game, it seems, recognises game.
“She’s very dedicated, very focused and very good. She is a really nice person in the team as well,” the Dutchwoman said, smiling as she stood atop the Madeleine. “I was dropped early but I only heard on the radio she was doing amazing. Of course we hoped for this day and we were going all in with the team but you don’t know what is going to happen and if everything would turn out like this but she felt good, she was focused and ready for it. I knew she was able to do really well, but this is beyond expectations.”
While Vos is one of the most experienced riders in the current women’s peloton – a professional rider for two decades – Ferrand-Prévot also works with riders on Visma-Lease a Bike who are much, much newer to the sport. Eva van Agt, who has been part of the squad for three years, explained that she is learning invaluable lessons from riding alongside the current yellow jersey wearer.
“At the moment she is really focused. Not super talkative. But it is really cool to notice how such a great champion can focus so well. I’ve done some training rides with her, she is grown up and wise, has a lot of good advice mentally,” the 28-year-old said after finishing over half an hour behind Ferrand-Prévot on stage eight.
“During this race I noticed she wants to stay really calm and sometimes she even says we stress her out. We want to help her, give her drinks, move her up to the front and she says don’t worry, wait, the final climb is where it matters.”
Part of the skill when it comes to stage racing, as Ferrand-Prévot knows, is having patience. It is about waiting for your moment to move, avoiding stress on the days where it doesn’t matter, finding moments of peace and clarity whenever you can. While the focus in this Tour so far has been on the likes of FDJ-Suez and Demi Vollering, Ferrand-Prévot has avoided attention and controversy. It is this, she believes, that will help her finish the job on Sunday.
“Right now, I’m going to recover, eat well – we still have an hour and a half transfer to do this evening, so I’ll try and relax on the bus and have a good night, and a good massage. We’ll also look at the team tactics for tomorrow. I know that the girls will be 100% behind me, which makes me feel a bit less pressure, but now we need to get the job done,” the French rider said, characteristically grounded.
“As I said, it’s really a little girl’s dream to wear this yellow jersey, so in any case, my Tour de France is a success. Today I felt really good, so why would I feel bad tomorrow? We’ll have to be vigilant. I did a recon on the stage – I know the Joux-Plane and the Corbier. It’s going to be interesting,” she continued.
If Ferrand-Prévot can pull it off on stage nine and take the biggest, most coveted prize in bike racing, she will be writing her name into the history books as arguably the most versatile female cyclist of all time. She will make history for Visma-Lease a Bike, who have long been dreaming of having a Tour champion again. Most importantly of all, she will realise the dream of that little girl she remembers hoping for this day. The road has been long and hard, but Ferrand-Prévot is on the cusp of cycling romance. This is as good as it gets.
