Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot took an incredible win at the Tour de France Femmes \u2014 her rivals knew they were doomed the moment they saw how effortlessly she was riding early in Stage 8.<\/p>\n
PFP would ultimately drop Sarah Gigante on the steep slopes and powered clear on the penultimate stage. By the summit, she had minutes in hand. By the finish, the overall win was all but secured.<\/p>\n
GC threats like Kasia Niewiadoma and Demi Vollering already knew winning the Tour de France Femmes title would be a serious battle.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe immediately saw how easily Pauline was riding, she wasn\u2019t breathing. So then we knew: oh dear, this is going to be tough,\u201d the 2023 Tour winner, Demi Vollering, said in an interview with IDL Cycling.<\/a><\/p>\n Her ride capped a calculated week. The 32-year-old, better known in recent years for her mountain bike dominance, had returned to the road this summer with the Tour as her main target. She kept her cards close early. The French rider was cagey \u2014 avoiding any unnecessary effort \u2014 then delivered the decisive blow when it mattered most.<\/p>\n For French cycling, it was a long-awaited moment. Not since Jeannie Longo had a home rider taken such a commanding win in a women\u2019s Grand Tour.<\/p>\n After a decade dominating MTB \u2014 and crushing it, as we all know \u2014 PFP returned to the road this season. With a Paris-Roubaix win already under her belt and now the Tour de France Femmes title, she\u2019s cemented her comeback in incredible fashion.<\/p>\n Last year\u2019s champ, Niewiadoma, battled hard on the descents during Stage 9.\u00a0 She ended up moving up to third overall.\u00a0 2023 champ Vollering had to settle for second. Gigante would lose her podium spot during the final stage, struggling with some of the technical downhills.<\/p>\n Canadian riders stood out, too. Nadia Gontova (Winspace \u2013 Orange Seal) and Magdeleine Valli\u00e8res impressed, with Valli\u00e8res finishing 18th overall \u2014 the best ever for a Canadian woman in this race. Sarah Van Dam (Ceratizit) earned a top-10 sprint finish. And our national champ Alison Jackson made her mark in breakaways.<\/p>\n On the final stage from Praz-sur-Arly to Ch\u00e2tel Les Portes du Soleil, Gontova delivered an inspiring performance, finishing tenth. She also lived up to her promise mid-race. \u201cIt\u2019s super exciting being part of the race. And the crowds are incredible,\u201d she said earlier. \u201cI\u2019m enjoying the learning experience and hoping to have good legs in the mountains.\u201d (She did!)<\/p>\n Although the Tour de France Fellas and Tour de France Femmes are over, there\u2019s lots of racing left. The Tour of Denmark is up next for men, and there\u2019s also the women\u2019s Tour du Pologne.\u00a0 And don\u2019t forget the WorldTour pros head over here to Canada for Les Grands Prix Cyclistes de Qu\u00e9bec et Montr\u00e9al. Tadej Poga\u010dar<\/a> is coming! And Wout van Aert! All reasons to check it out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot took an incredible win at the Tour de France Femmes \u2014 her rivals knew they were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-61107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}