{"id":391949,"date":"2026-01-26T21:39:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T21:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/391949\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T21:39:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T21:39:09","slug":"gravel-star-axelle-dubau-prevot-joins-ef-education-oatly-with-dreams-of-the-tour-de-france-femmes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/391949\/","title":{"rendered":"Gravel star Axelle Dubau-Pr\u00e9vot joins EF Education-Oatly with dreams of the Tour de France Femmes"},"content":{"rendered":"

French national gravel champion Axelle Dubau-Pr\u00e9vot<\/a> will ride for EF Education-Oatly<\/a> in 2026, adding top-level road racing to her schedule after a rapid rise in the off-road ranks.<\/p>\n

Dubau-Pr\u00e9vot, 29, has long mixed the disciplines and ridden for lower-level road teams in the past before taking a break from the sport, but her arrival at EF comes after she found her groove in gravel and had a hugely successful 2025 in the discipline.<\/p>\n

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The Frenchwoman won two rounds of the UCI Gravel World Series<\/a>, podiumed at two others, and came second at the Traka 360, before four stages and the overall at Gravel Burn<\/a>. Her performances were enough to catch the attention of WorldTour teams and allow her to make a return to the road for 2026.<\/p>\n

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“This is my dream team,” she said in a team press release. “They think outside of the box at EF Education-Oatly. It\u2019s the only team where I can see myself because I don\u2019t have a traditional cycling background. I want to be serious and also to keep the joy and the fun in racing.”<\/p>\n

She will continue to race both gravel and road with the American team, which mixes its WorldTour programs with various off-road and alternative racing calendars, such as Lachlan Morton<\/a>‘s adventure programme, or the cyclo-cross team built around Mattia Agostinacchio. Adding a female off-road rider was a goal for EF manager Esra Tromp.<\/p>\n

“We were looking for a rider who could be competitive in gravel as well as be an asset with our road team, so Axelle is a great fit,” Tromp said.<\/p>\n

“On the road, she\u2019s something of an all-rounder, and on gravel, she has the endurance for stage races and the speed to go for one-day races. Axelle\u2019s background isn\u2019t that of a typical cyclist, and I like that.<\/p>\n

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“I think it gives her a healthy perspective on racing and on life. knowing that she has chosen to step away from the sport at times. This kind of maturity says a lot about her character.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dubau-Pr\u00e9vot says her goals for 2026 will include defending her French gravel title, a return to the Traka, and developing as a teammate on the road.<\/p>\n

When it comes to road racing, it’s no surprise that the Frenchwoman is hoping to start at the Tour de France Femmes<\/a> in the coming season, particularly after seeing her sister Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot<\/a> win the yellow jersey in 2025.<\/p>\n

“When I heard a few years ago that the Tour was coming back, I was out of the cycling world, and I felt a bit sad to think that I would never take part in it,” she said. “I\u2019m French, and if someone asks me what I do and I say I\u2019m a cyclist, they immediately ask if I race the Tour de France. It\u2019s the reference.<\/p>\n

“Now, after watching the race and seeing that EF Education-Oatly really wants to do something big at the Tour, I would love to make the Tour squad one year.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"French national gravel champion Axelle Dubau-Pr\u00e9vot will ride for EF Education-Oatly in 2026, adding top-level road racing to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-391949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}