It’s easy to forget that Pauline Ferrand-Prévot only returned to road racing a year ago, given the heights of her success and quick return to the upper echelons of the sport, and it will be no different on Sunday as she lines up as one of the favourites for the Tour of Flanders.
Ferrand-Prévot already achieved her primary goal last year, winning the Tour de France Femmes, and indeed taking a surprising Paris-Roubaix Femmes victory in the spring too, but this year she’s dreaming bigger yet, making Flanders one of her key goals ahead of her Tour defence campaign.
The Frenchwoman rode Flanders seven times – every year – before her road hiatus, but no one quite knew what to expect when she returned in 2025 after a seven-year absence. But as she would for the rest of the season, she hit the ground running, to say the least, finishing second behind only Lotte Kopecky from an elite late move.
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That very quickly proved to Ferrand-Prévot and her team that Flanders was a more than realistic goal for 2026, which was only cemented by her subsequent successes in 2025.
Finishing second on her first attempt back didn’t leave Visma with too many question marks about how she can convert that into a win, as she is clearly already nearly there – the idea will largely be to race in a similar way, just hopefully one podium place better.
Visma-Lease a Bike have flown slightly under the radar this spring, with Ferrand-Prévot and Vos racing only sparingly, but the team have nonetheless grabbed some positive results with Noojen’s…
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