French rider Aude Biannic (Movistar) has revealed that she raced the 2024 Paris-Roubaix Femmes and Tour of Flanders whilst pregnant, before finding out she was going to become a mother.
Speaking to L'Équipe at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, where she's been racing at home in Brittany with her son in attendance, Biannic recalled how she raced two major Classics in the first month of her pregnancy last year.
"I didn't know it yet, but I was already in the first month of pregnancy," she told L'Équipe. "I felt something was happening, but I had decided to take the test after Paris-Roubaix. It's a race that I really like. I couldn't have raced it knowing that I was pregnant."
Following in the footsteps of riders like Lizzie Deignan and Ellen van Dijk, Biannic trained throughout her pregnancy, which allowed her to come back to racing so soon in 2025.
"During my pregnancy, I was lucky enough not to get sick, not to suffer too much," she told L'Équipe. "I don't know if it was the high-level cycling that meant I had much less nausea and complications than a normal person. I continued to train for months, but without intensity, just to have fun and clear my mind.
"I took out my gravel bike and rode the greenways near my home in Quimper. It felt so good to put down some watts! I put off stopping my riding as long as possible... The night before I gave birth, I was even wondering if I should go for a little ride."
She resumed training a month after her son was born, and now joins the growing list of riders who have successfully returned to professional cycling after becoming a mother, which is continuing to inspire others to do the same.
"Many girls ask me for help, and are impressed. It's important for me to show that it's possible in France too, that you can give birth to a child and return a few months later to the highest level, as other girls have done," she said.
At the Tour, Biannic – a long-term domestique of Annemiek van Vleuten – is supporting the likes of Liane Lippert and Mareille Meijering as Movistar hunt stage success after the early abandon of Marlen Reusser.
"Now, I really want to perform, to help my team in the biggest race of the year."
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