It was a kind of second bank holidays. "French fireworks on the Madeleine," was the verdict of the French television commentator. Although there is no record of rockets in the colours of the tricolour being launched around the Alpine pass, what happened on the Col de la Madeleine on 2 August 2025 was a day of celebration for the Grande Nation.
Around eleven kilometres before the stage finish at an altitude of just under 2000 metres, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot set a pace that no one was soon able to follow. First she overtook the two former Tour winners Demi Vollering and Kasia Niewiadoma, and later the only remaining rival in the overall classification, the extremely lightweight Australian Sarah Gigante; five kilometres before the finish, the last breakaway of the day overtook her and rode solo to the stage win and the yellow jersey - at the highest point of the Tour de France Femmes 2025.
"I just tried to go as fast as possible," said the 33-year-old Frenchwoman at the finish. It was too fast for all her rivals - far too fast. She was 1:45 minutes ahead of the day's runner-up, more than three minutes ahead of Vollering and Niewiadoma - a demonstration of power. The following day, she rode to another stage win in yellow on the final section and spread her arms wide as she crossed the finish line. The message: Be embraced!
On her very first attempt, she achieved the last major goal of her extremely successful cycling career - the Victory in the world's most famous cycling race. The Olympic mountain bike champion returned to road cycling at an advanced age. The organiser ASO then celebrated the first overall victory by a Frenchwoman in the most important women's cycling race. However, the history of the race is considered incomplete and open to interpretation. After all, the Frenchwoman Jeannie Longo won one of the predecessor races, the Tour de France féminin, which was organised from 1984, from 1987 to 1989.
However, the Tour organiser ASO calculates differently. No matter. "PFP", as the 2025 Tour winner is known in France by her initials instead of her unwieldy double name, ended a decades-long dry spell for French cycling. The Grande Nation offers cycling the biggest stages in the world, but the locals have long played only supporting roles - since the days of Longo and Bernard Hinault, who was the last French winner in the men's race in 1985.
Just as the history of the Tour was long interrupted for female cyclists, Frenchwoman Ferrand-Prévot's road cycling career was also patchy. She was an early achiever when she made cycling history more than a decade ago: at the tender age of 22, she was to the world championship title in the road race in Ponferrada, Spain just ahead of the German Lisa Brennauer. A few months later, she became the first and so far only female cyclist to also wear the rainbow jersey as world champion in cyclocross and on a mountain bike. Other all-rounders such as Marianne Vos, Tom Pidcock and Mathieu van der Poel have not yet achieved this feat.
The now 33-year-old, who comes from Reims in Champagne, is regarded as a prime example of professionalism and focus - even if she seemed to lose the thread of her career at one point. She lost her footing, completely lost interest in road cycling during her time with the German racing team Canyon-SRAM and became alienated from the sport that had once made her famous. Only an operation on a leg artery, which solved the mystery surrounding her declining performance, brought flow back into her career.
She collected titles en masse on her mountain bike - and chased the ultimate goal of her dreams: winning the Olympics. She completed and finalised her curriculum vitae as a mountain biker with her ride to gold in Paris a year ago. She needed new goals. She signed a contract with the Visma-Lease a Bike racing team, alongside Marianne Vos, whose role as a role model and supporter during their time together at the Rabobank racing team from 2012 to 2016 she always emphasises. She signed a contract for three years - with a clear goal: she wanted to try to win the Tour de France, as she put it, and companions were quite sure that she would not stop there.
Nevertheless, even the experts were surprised at how and how quickly she achieved this goal. The way she did it led to discussions. After the Tour winner was honoured, questions arose as to the reasons for her oppressive superiority, favoured by an extremely lean figure. Quite unintentionally, the Frenchwoman triggered a discussion about losing weight and the eating disorders often associated with it in top-class sport. Her rival Demi Vollering had to put up with journalists asking whether she would only be able to win the Tour in future if she followed the current winner's strict weight regime.
PFP defended herself against the indirect accusation of being a bad example for other, especially very young, female racers. In fact, Clara Koppenburg, for example, jumped to her defence. Experience with the REDs syndrome a sports-related malnutrition. The German racing driver emphasised that she trusted the highly professional Frenchwoman to master the risky game of potentially health-threatening weight management - without any lasting consequences. "I know it's not one hundred per cent healthy," PFP herself admitted. In fact, she showed off a completely different figure during her high-altitude flight on the Madeleine at the beginning of August than she did during her Victory at Paris-Roubaix in April - when she gave the first indications that her comeback to road cycling could be very successful very quickly.
And Ferrand-Prévot explained after the Tour that she felt empty and exhausted - both physically and mentally. Originally, she had wanted to forgo the World Championships in Rwanda at the end of the season, was at the start after allbut no longer seemed to be in top form. Shortly afterwards, she had an ankle operation at the beginning of October. Since a fall at the beginning of March during a race Strade Bianche (which she finished third) the bone had caused problems. The fast track to triumph last year was probably quite painful. The question for 2026 is: how sustainable is the high?
Andreas Kublik
Editor
