Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Ineos Grenadiers) has said a minor injury, possibly in her hip, is taking its toll in her current uneven cyclocross campaign and has been troubling her for weeks.
The French star and former Cyclocross World and National Champion finished a lowkey 27th in the most recent round of the cyclocross World Cup at Gavere on Monday, nearly six minutes down on winner Shirin van Anrooij (Baloise Trek Lions).
Prior to that she took seventh in the World Cup in Dublin, her best result this season together with a seventh place in the Europeans in early November.
Ferrand-Prévot told French-speaking media after Gavere that her participation in the upcoming Cyclocross World Championships was a subject that “would be discussed” with her team, Ineos Grenadiers.
The 30-year-old has had a rollercoaster return to cyclocross following a two-year gap, with multiple mechanical issues marring her first race back, the Koppenbergcross in early November.
She was adamant back then that the Cyclocross World Championships was her top objective, saying at the Europeans that “it [the Worlds] is totally my goal. It’s also why I’m here. I wanted to judge myself and see what I had to do to be better. I came here to observe what I can do better."
However, Ferrand-Prévot was more downbeat after the Gavere race on Monday, saying “I have had a slight injury and we don’t know what it is. We have changed quite a few things on the bike. In fact, we’ve changed everything.”
Discussing her latest races, she said “I felt like after a few metres, I get a pain in my hip area and I can’t push on.”
As for the Cyclocross World Championships, Ferrand-Prevót said that nothing was decided and she was going to be having talks with her team about it.
But she recognised that she was not operating at the level she wanted, even if “in terms of my heart-rate, that’s fine. It just wasn’t my day.”
Last autumn the multi-discipline world champion signed a two-year contract with Ineos Grenadiers with a view toward her home Olympic Games in Paris in 2024. The 30-year-old, the first woman to sign for the British squad, is part of the team's growing off-road collective racing cyclocross, gravel and mountain bike.
