telling The Times before the race<\/a>: \u201cThe goal is to beat them on Col de la Madeleine.\u201d But it seemed all the favourites had the same idea. <\/p>\nSarah Gigante of AG Insurance-Soudal started the attacks after her team-mate Le Court (the winner of stage five) had sacrificed herself and the Yellow Jersey that rested on her shoulders to lead the Australian on the 19km climb. When the Mauritian was empty it was up to Gigante to set a hard pace and the group of favourites was splintered but Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot remained on her wheel.<\/p>\n
In what is becoming a Visma trademark tactic (in both the men\u2019s and women\u2019s peloton) Marion Bunel was waiting up the road for the Frenchwoman, having made the earlier breakaway. She took over pacing duties from Gigante and then it was time for Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot to attack with 9km to go. Gigante had no answer and Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot went alone, closed the gap to the breakaway stragglers and took the stage victory. <\/p>\n
![\"Pauline](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/\/bb8c53f9-7f6e-42be-b191-2c5d5e6dd8da.jpg\")
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Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot attacked late on the final stage to secure victory<\/p>\n
JULIEN DE ROSA\/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n
\u201cA little girl\u2019s dream came true today,\u201d Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot said after the stage. The Visma rider put on the Yellow Jersey and, with one stage to go, was atop the GC, 2min 37sec ahead of Gigante and 3min 18sec ahead of the pre-race favourite, Demi Vollering (FDJ\u2013Suez). <\/p>\n
\u201cI just don\u2019t feel like myself,\u201d Vollering said. \u201cI just missed some power in the legs \u2026 I just couldn\u2019t keep up. It\u2019s as simple as that. Cycling is very simple for once.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Sunday\u2019s final, mountainous stage nine, over 124km between Praz-sur-Arly and Ch\u00e2tel, Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot provided another tactical masterclass. There was no need for her to attack in the early climbs and while Niewiadoma forced a hard pace in search of a podium position and Vollering did all she could on the descents, Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot did not break but chose to sit in the wheels and never appeared to suffer, although momentarily was dropped on the very first descent of the day.<\/p>\n
But with 6km to go to the finish, the Maillot Jaune attacked out of the select group. No one could go with her \u2014 she finished the stage first, 20 seconds ahead of Vollering and Niewiadoma. Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot fell to the floor and cried into her hands, a French winner of the Tour de France Femmes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt may have looked easy, but it was the result of a lot of work,\u201d Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot said. \u201cI think I have really set the bar this year on how to prepare for the Tour. I have made a lot of sacrifices. I thought about that yesterday and I talked about it this morning with my team-mates. This victory shows that it was worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot is one of the most versatile and talented riders of her generation, male or female, and she is a popular winner for a nation in need of a champion. She is now the queen of French cycling and resplendent in yellow.<\/p>\n
Final standings1 <\/b>Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot (Visma-Lease a Bike, Fra) 29hrs 54min 24sec 2<\/b> Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez, Ned) +3:42 3<\/b> Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon\/SRAM, Pol) +4:09 4<\/b> Dominika Wlodarczyk (UAE Team ADQ, Pol) +5:45 5<\/b> Niamh Fisher-Black (Lidl-Trek, NZ) +6:25 6<\/b> Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance-Soudal, Aus) +6:40 7<\/b> Juliette Labous (FDJ-Suez, Fra) +9:13 8<\/b> C\u00e9drine Kerbaol (EF Education-Oatly, Fra) +13:43 9<\/b> Pauliena Rooijakkers (Fenix-Deceuninck, Ned) +13:59 10<\/b> \u00c9vita Muzic (FDJ-Suez, Fra) +15:50<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In April, having just won Paris-Roubaix Femmes, Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot made her next goal clear: \u201cThe Tour de France…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-315381","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114966638312098189","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Pauline](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/\/bb0734bb-d492-417b-80ad-5eed87fab97f.jpg\")
<\/p>\n