‘I’ll do everything I can to defend my title’ – Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and Visma-Lease a Bike pushing all out for repeat triumph at Tour de France Femmes in 2026

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot was anything but cautious at the Visma-Lease a Bike 2026 team launch on Wednesday about stating her main goal for the upcoming season, with her primary aim to repeat her spectacular success in the 2025 Tour de France Femmes.

Ferrand-Prévot, 33, returned to road racing in 2025 after a spell focusing mainly on gravel and MTB, which saw her take the Olympic gold title in Paris in 2024.

Having clinched both Paris-Roubaix and the Tour de France with Visma-Lease a Bike last season, Ferrand-Prévot believes that it will be possible to progress even further in 2026, as after a steeper initial learning curve, she is now much more familiar with the inner workings of the team and can profit from that.

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“For me, 2025 was a year full of learning, but I pick up new things quickly.,” Ferrand-Prévot said in a team press release.

“The support from the staff and my teammates meant I was able to reach a high level very quickly. What we achieved last season was incredible, but my focus is already on the coming year.”

“I still want to work on my consistency. My goal is to fight for the very top in every race I start. I finished on the podium many times in 2025, but secretly I want to win more.”

Ferrand-Prévot had given herself three years to win the Tour, and she succeeded in taking it at the first attempt, something which logically provided her with a massive confidence boost that she could do so again. That’s even if, as she pointed out, “last season [2025], I started the Tour as an outsider, but that will be different next season. [2026].”

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“I have to be ready to start as one of the favourites in the biggest races from now on.”

“The Tour was the most important race we could win. I will do everything I can to defend my title.”

“We went there with the ambition of finishing on the podium,” teammate Marianne Vos added on another team press release.

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“Pauline looked sharp throughout the entire Tour and came through the opening days without any issues. While we didn’t quite know what to expect in the mountain stages, we were confident she was ready. The fact that she won the final two stages and the overall classification was the perfect culmination of a fantastic Tour.”

Considered the greatest racer of all time, regarding her own schedule. Vos said that she will be looking at a Classics-heavy program in the first half of 2026, featuring Strade Bianche, the Tour of Flanders, and Paris-Roubaix.

“Winning a Classic is something truly special. Everyone prepares meticulously for these races and wants to be at their very best,” Vos said. She also pointed out that Paris-Roubaix was one race – one of the very few major events she has never won – she found particularly attractive.

“It’s chaos every year in Roubaix,” she pointed out, “I absolutely love racing there.”

As for the Tour de France Femmes, one of the key differences between 2025 and 2026 is that the time trial stage is back on the program, and Ferrand-Prévot agreed that that was an area in which she could still make concrete improvements. Training on the time trial bike will be a major part of her off-race program in 2026, she said, even if the Tour time trial, a 21-kilometre mid-race effort from Gevrey-Chambertin to Dijon, was not overly long.

Ferrand-Prévot said that other Tour stages earmarked by her included the summit finish on the Ventoux and the final stage to Nice, close to her home, would be “a major goal.”

“All eyes will be on us as defending champions,” Vos added. “Honestly, I think Pauline is well used to handling pressure. It’s part of elite sport. You have to be able to deal with all kinds of external factors.”