Visma-Lease a Bike's Pauline Ferrand-Prévot was undoubtedly the star of the show at Rouleur Live on Friday evening, headlining the show and attracting attention from everyone in attendance.
Battling through flight delays and a late arrival, Ferrand-Prévot got immediately stuck in to multiple signings and meet and greets, with queues and crowds amassing around her, before taking to the stage in front of a packed theatre to reflect on a momentous year.
Winner of the Tour de France Femmes and Paris-Roubaix in 2025, in only her first year after returning to the road after dominating mountain biking and becoming Olympic champion at home in Paris in 2024, Ferrand-Prévot ends the year at the top of women's cycling, and Friday's adoring reception was only testament to that.
Sitting down to speak on stage, the 33-year-old initially joked about how she was nervous to talk in front of so many people, but as she settled into conversation with Rouleur's Rachel Jary, it became clear that she isn't really a person who struggles with the weight of expectation – she lives for it.
"I really like cycling, for me it's my life. I can't say I really like racing, but I like winning. So it's very complicated. Maybe it can be a bit pretentious, but if I race, it's because I want to win," she said.
"It was so cool to feel this pressure. I love it," she said of the day of one of her biggest wins – the Olympic mountain bike title last summer. "Just being in your bubble and you know that everyone is waiting for you and you have to make it that day.
"After the Olympics, I said to myself 'maybe you will never live this again', having this feeling of everyone waiting for you to win. But this last stage of the Tour de France was the best for me, because I had this feeling again."
After her astounding year on the road, Ferrand-Prévot has had to take an extended break from training this winter to recover from surgery to remove an infection in her ankle that she's been carrying since Strade Bianche, but she's already looking ahead to the next places to strive to win and feel that expectation again.
With the yellow jersey achieved, it's the Classics where she wants to focus next year.
"I also want to try to win Flanders and Liège at the beginning of the season," she told the Rouleur Live audience. "This year, coming back into road cycling, I was quite up and down I would say. I performed well in the Tour, but I would like next year to perform more at the beginning of the season and then in the Tour de France too. That's also another challenge for me to have two peaks in the season, and I really love this idea also."
Immediately after the Tour this year, Ferrand-Prevot joked that she didn't want to go through the preparation again, which saw her spend two months at altitude, 5am wake-ups, and a controlled plan to lose 4kg to reach her planned race weight.
However, speaking on Friday, she was clear that she was ready to target the Tour and all that entails once more.
"For sure I want to try again," she said, met with a round of applause.
"It's also what I like the most, the preparation, all the weeks before. You train like crazy. I really like this lifestyle also, I go to bed at eight, eight thirty, I wake up at five, I do my yoga and go training. I'm so focused. In the moment it's super hard because you can't see your family much or enjoy a drink or a good meal, but at the end when you win the Tour, you say 'OK, it was the best result possible' and what you did before, you forget about it."
With the route announced at the end of October, the peloton already know what needs to be done to win the Tour in 2026, and though the inclusion of a time trial may weigh against Ferrand-Prévot – she's yet to race a competitive individual TT since returning to the road – there are also plenty of things to look forward to.
"I'm thinking that it's a TT, but an uphill TT so it's not too bad. But I have to get on the TT bike again and it's really a new challenge for me and I really love that," she said. "We have Mont Ventoux, and I love this climb and I know it quite well. And the finish is in Nice, and I live really close by, it will be on my training roads. The last stage is going to be amazing, because it's really what I do in training, so I'm really looking forward it already.
"It will be a different approach. We also have to work on it as a team. Also it's not just because I won last year that I have to win it again next year. This is what I say to myself," she laughed. "I also like this pressure. I don't get weaker because of that, I think I have to use the pressure as a good support and in the end I will do my best and we will see."
Targetting more Classics success – this time planned
As well as a Tour de France Femmes title defence, Ferrand-Prévot wants to focus more on the Spring. Of course, she did win perhaps the biggest Spring Classic of all this season, soloing to victory at Paris-Roubaix, but that was a surprise to all involved, she recounted.
"Roubaix was not planned at the beginning of the season but I told my trainer I would like to do it," she said. "I was already two months in altitude and I got a bit bored so I said to my trainer 'can I do it please?'. I wanted to race for Marianne [Vos], so we said 'OK, we don't do preparation for Roubaix, you just go with your shape and you will try to help Marianne the best way possible'."
In the end, her racing for Vos led to her winning, which was a surprise in itself, but was in fact doubly unexpected, as she nearly didn't start the race at all.
"It's crazy and if I tell you you won't believe me," she said. "My ankle got infected before the start so I was really sick, and the morning of the race my coach and the DS called me, and I didn't sleep all night so I thought for sure they would tell me 'Pauline, you won't race today and you just stay in bed and that's it'. But they came in the bus and they said 'Pauline, we just called the doctor, it's no risk for you and your health so you can race'. I said 'are you sure? Maybe not?' but they said 'you just take the start, do your best and we will see'.
"I didn't do any recon, I just went in blind. But sometimes when you don't really expect things, that's when they come to you."
"I just wanted to attack for Marianne to make the others work, and I think they just looked at each other a bit too much, and I won Roubaix. It was so nice to win but I felt so bad and I was so sick after the race that I didn't really enjoy it, so it was a mixed feeling."
Working with Classics specialist Marianne Vos – who signed a lifetime contract with Visma-Lease a Bike this year, and hasn't hinted at retiring any time soon – will be a key element for Ferrand-Prévot next year if she wants to win the Tour of Flanders and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
She already finished second in the Tour of Flanders this year, and is a former winner of La Flèche Wallonne in her previous stint as a road racer. She finished 12th in Liège this year.
In 2026, it seems likely that Vos will focus on the flatter cobbled Classics, whilst Ferrand-Prévot will target the hills, as they continue to improve their racing partnership that dates back to 2012.
"We started the first race of the year [in 2025] and it was not very good, because I didn't want to be in her way, and she also didn't want to be in my way. So we both raced but we didn't have a plan," Ferrand-Prevot said of racing with Vos again this year.
"After the race, we always do a debrief and everything, and I just said it was not good, we have to be better. You are Marianne Vos, I'm Pauline, and we need to stay who we are, and I think it was really fit. Then we decided that Marianne will do her own way, so at the Tour de France her going for stages and me going for GC, and we found a good way to work together but to stay our own person. I think it's important to respect the people that we are."
