“I really like cycling, it’s my life. I can’t say I really like racing but I like winning. Maybe it’s a bit pretentious to say this, but I race because I love to win,” Pauline Ferrand-Prévot told a captivated crowd at Rouleur Live 2025.
An Olympic gold medal, a yellow jersey and a Roubaix cobblestone; Ferrand-Prévot’s trophy cabinet is unique in the world of cycling. Those prizes were all claimed in the last 18 months of a career that started over a decade ago. Also on her palmarès: Elite World Championship titles over road, mountain bike and cyclocross.
In recent years cycling fans have been spoilt by the multi-discipline talents; from the likes of Marianne Vos and Puck Pieterse on the women’s side to Mathieu van der Poel and Tom Pidcock on the men’s, the stars over the dirt, gravel and mud are often the protagonists on the road too. Ferrand-Prévot might just be the best example of this, something she attributes to her upbringing doing several disciplines: “As a child I was very scared to be bored, so I did everything.”
This approach of different goals and challenges has kept her enjoying the sport. She revealed to the Rouleur Live crowd that her decision to race the Queen of the Classics, Paris-Roubaix Femmes avec Zwift came off the back of this attitude: “I was a bit bored, so I asked my team if I could do Paris-Roubaix!”
The Roubaix win was the first half of a miraculous double in her home country’s two most important races, the second being the Tour de France Femmes. When Ferrand-Prévot won the Grand Boucle she became the first French yellow jersey winner since Bernard Hinault in 1985. It was the biggest result of her glistening career, and came after only returning to the road in January.
Ferrand-Prévot grew up with cycling as a constant — family rides, local races, and the Tour de France on television every summer, but not for the women.
“I was training crazy hours even when I was young. I love training and love trying to be better. But, I was watching the Tour de France and I really wanted to be a boy. When I told my mother that I would like to be a professional cyclist, she said ‘first you have to go to school’. Women’s cycling wasn’t as developed as it is now. It’s a different sport now, it’s much more professional. It’s totally…