Pauline Ferrand-Prévot had a great spring, but La Vuelta Femenina is the real test of her comeback – Analysis

When Pauline Ferrand-Prévot announced her intention to return to road cycling, she had one clear ambition: to win the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. The multiple time world champion stepped away from road racing in 2018, preferring to dominate in mountain biking, but with the arrival of a real Tour de France for women, everything changed. 

So far, the Frenchwoman's return has gone better than probably anyone would have expected. A few test runs in late 2024 were nothing to write home about, but in 2025, you'd hardly know she hadn't raced on the road for years. 

She animated the Classics, taking third in Strade Bianche, second in the Tour of Flanders, and then victory in Paris-Roubaix. It's hard to deny that so far, she is well amongst the protagonists of the women's peloton, the riders we expect to be in the top 10 all year, from the Classics to the stage races.

However, one-day racing is one thing, and stage races are another. Whilst many of the same names do excel in both – Demi Vollering, Elisa Longo Borghini, Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney – we can't assume that a good spring means Ferrand-Prévot will do the same in the stage races. 

That's why this week at the Vuelta Femenina is perhaps the most important test so far for the Frenchwoman. 

She's proven what she can do in the Classics, but if the Tour is her main goal, it's stage racing where she really has questions to answer, and the mountains of the Vuelta will leave her nowhere to hide.

After such an impressive spring, Ferrand-Prévot is certainly coming to this race with confidence, and Visma-Lease a Bike have named her as their GC leader whilst Marianne Vos chases stages.

"I never dared to dream of a spring like this,” the Frenchwoman said ahead of the race. "It was an amazing, but demanding period. I enjoyed a short break at home to recharge. Now I feel completely ready to give it my all in La Vuelta."

Ferrand-Prévot started her 2025 with a stage race at the UAE Tour and finished forgettable 17th overall, Before that she hadn't raced a stage race on the road since the Women's Tour in 2018. She raced, and won, the eight-day Cape Epic MTB race in 2022, but the last time she raced more than five stages on the road was ten years ago at the Giro.

With so little recent experience with races like this, Ferrand-Prévot is going into the Vuelta without the pressure of results.

"I started the spring with few expectations – nothing was required, everything was allowed. I’ll approach La Vuelta with the same mindset," she said

Even if Ferrand-Prévot is going into the race with an open mind, and perhaps not thinking about winning, she will still be in Spain to get some kind of result, and she likely will want to prove to herself and the world that a Tour de France bid is realistic. So what can we expect from the Frenchwoman?

There may be questions over her ability in the mountains and stage racing, simply because she hasn't been doing that on the road, but if you look to more than just results sheets, there are a lot of signs that suggest Ferrand-Prévot will step back into stage racing with similar success as in the Classics.

If you don't watch much mountain biking, you may assume that it's a fairly flat affair, something like a beefed up cyclocross, but in actual fact many of the hardest courses include some serious climbing and elevation gain. 

The ascents aren't as long as on the road, but mountain bikers are used to tough uphill efforts, and racing at altitude, so there's no reason to think that Ferrand-Prévot isn't a strong climber – the hillier MTB courses are the ones she tends to dominate. Plus, her pedigree in Cape Epic proves that racing over multiple days is not automatically an issue.

And though it was 10 years ago, we can look to Ferrand-Prévot's history in stage races as a suggestion of how she gets on in this races physically. 

Yes, the modern Grand Tours are thought to be a lot harder, and the level generally higher, but her second overall in the Giro in 2014 and wins in races like Emakumeen Bira do show that she is the kind of rider who can recover day after day and put together a good race over a longer period.

At the Vuelta, the real key days will be the summit finishes on stages 5 and 7, and they offer challenges much bigger than anything Ferrand-Prévot has done so far this year. Winning Roubaix was huge, but when the Frenchwoman is climbing the 10 kilometres up to Lagunas de Neila, that cobble trophy isn't going to mean much. 

Ferrand-Prévot was realistic about her Tour goal, saying she wants to win it within three years, so not necessarily in 2025, but the Vuelta marks perhaps the very first step in that project. 

The first part of the Vuelta challenge didn't go especially smoothly – Visma-Lease a Bike were forced to complain after bike check delays scuppered their TTT start, and the team lost 21 seconds in the opening stage – but there's still a lot to come this week. Even if the stage 1 time loss proves impactful on the GC, the way Ferrand-Prévot is able to climb will be important.

"I believe it will be a key experience for my development. It’s going to be a valuable week, and hopefully we’ll be able to lay some foundations for the Tour de France, which is another major goal,” she said.

"I’m ready to give it my all together with my teammates. It’s my first Grand Tour ever [ed. Ferrand-Prévot raced the Giro d'Italia Femminile three times from 2013 to 2015] which definitely adds some excitement."

Her Classics results may have put Ferrand-Prévot clearly in the narrative, but really, her journey to a hoped-for Tour de France Femmes victory starts now. 

The signs so far look good, and we shouldn't doubt her abilities as a climber, but the truth is that the sport and the stage racing discipline has changed dramatically since she last took part in races like that.

Ferrand-Prévot believes that she can contest in the Tour, her team do too, and for many, her Classics campaign might have been proof enough of her abilities, but this is the race that really matters, and could truly make or break her chances of being counted as a serious GC contender. 

The questions are clear, and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot has a big week ahead to try and answer them.