When Pauline Ferrand-Prévot lined up at Strade Bianche 12 months ago, she was the great unknown. Her return to road racing after a six year hiatus at UAE Tour had been underwhelming – 17th on GC, more than five minutes behind the winner Elisa Longo Borghini – and you could get long odds on her winning the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift in the forthcoming summer.
But on a dry, overcast March day in Siena, Ferrand-Prévot showed everyone that she was going to be a force to be reckoned with during the 2025 season. She finished third at Strade, despite crashing when in the group of favourites, and later that year went on to dominate the Tour and win the yellow jersey at the first time of asking.
This time around, there is no mystery. After years being the best mountain bike rider, now PFP is the best road rider in the women’s peloton. The Visma-Lease a Bike rider is the overwhelming favourite to win the Tour again later this summer, and Strade is the first of three season peaks for her (the Ardennes Classics and the Tour are her others). On the eve of the race, she’s declared herself fit, ready and raring to go. Her rivals have been warned.
“I feel very good,” she told the assembled press ahead of the race. “I’ve just come back from three weeks training at altitude with the team [... and] I have the feeling that I am ready. We know that training is different to racing, and I also don’t know the level of others as this will be my first race of the season, but compared to last year I am already feeling better. I am fit, really motivated and I hope we can achieve a good result on Saturday. But this is a Classics race and so many things can happen. You have to stay on your bike and be able to reach the last climb in a good position with good legs to be able to win the race.”
Reflecting on last year’s race and her mindset, Ferrand-Prévot admitted that she too went into the race with question marks hanging over her. “I was discovering what road cycling was again,” she said. “But after last year I feel like I am not new in this sport anymore. Last year I had the feeling when I started that I was still a MTB rider, but this year I am sitting here as a road rider. In my mind it is quite different. And after what I did last season I can also be more confident, and more sure about myself which I think is also good.”
At Strade 2025, Ferrand-Prévot was eager to make an impression, and joined a strong-looking breakaway with 40km to go, but none long afterwards fell on a corner. She still remounted to finish on the podium. “When I watched the race back, [she saw that] I spent a lot of energy,” she said, analysing her past performance. “When I went in this group, I was the only rider from the team and I had a feeling that I had to be in this group. But I spent a lot of energy being in this breakaway and it’s not something I’ll do again. It was a good learning point.”
What she realised at Strade stood her in good stead for the rest of her season. “How you spend your energy during a race had been the biggest learning for me,” she went on. “At the beginning of the race it doesn’t feel like it’s hard, but after 100km you start to feel the legs, and then the last 40km are really, really hard so it’s all about how you can save energy as much as possible.”
Most people predict Demi Vollering, the reigning champion, to be Ferrand-Prévot’s principal rival on Saturday, but she doesn’t see it the same way. “I don’t see Demi as bigger than anyone else,” the Frenchwoman said. “For me, in my head, Demi is like Kasia [Niewiadoma] and Elisa Longo Borghini. She [Vollering] is super, super good, but for me everyone is super good. It’s not especially about Demi. I don’t have a ranking [of favourites] – we have to look to everyone. Elisa Longo Borghini finished in the top-10 eight times in eight editions [prior to 2025], so there are many girls that can also do very well in this race. I expect her [Vollering] to be good but there are other riders who can also be good.” Maybe none of them will be as good as the Ferrand-Prévot though.
