Defending Tour de France Femmes champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot sounded an optimistic note about next year’s race following the 2026 route presentation on Thursday.
The Visma-Lease A Bike rider, who became the first Frenchwoman to win the modern iteration of the race, called it a “super nice route”, singling out the grand finale on her home roads in Nice and the summit finish atop Mont Ventoux as two stages she’s particularly looking forward to.
“It’s a super nice route. It’s going to be beautiful, and I really like it,” Ferrand-Prévot said after the route presentation, according to her team.
Ferrand-Prévot built her 2025 Tour victory in the mountainous stages of the race back in July, soloing to a dominant penultimate stage victory and the yellow jersey atop the Col de la Madeleine before sealing overall glory with another solo ride on the final day in Châtel.
Stage 4 of the race sees the return of the individual time trial, with the 21km test in Dijon the longest featured in the Tour de France Femmes since the 2023 edition. Ferrand-Prévot said that she’s looking forward to working on the time trial bike in preparation for the stage, which runs in a region of France she knows well.
Visma-Lease A Bike team manager Rutger Tijssen echoed Ferrand-Prévot’s enthusiasm for the race route, calling it a “complete Tour” and singling out the Mont Ventoux stage as the one which will make the big GC…
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