Heading into Tuesday's stage 4 time trial at the Tour de France Femmes, it was expected that defending champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot would shed time to her GC rivals. A loss of two minutes to stage winner Marlen Reusser and Demi Vollering, last year's runner-up, will sting, though.
On Monday, Visma-Lease a Bike directeur sportif Jos Van Emden told Cyclingnews that he was "confident enough" about the Frenchwoman's chances in the 21km ride to Dijon. Now, however, the Dutch squad will be going back to the drawing board as Ferrand-Prévot has to chase a lead, a contrast to last year's coronation in the Alps, where she soared away from everyone on the Col de la Madeleine.
Last Tour's penultimate stage, finishing on the 19km monster, saw Ferrand-Prévot put over two minutes into her main rivals for yellow, and a repeat will now be needed on Mont Ventoux or in the hills of the Ardéche and Nice either side of the Giant of Provence.
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In the aftermath of the stage 4 time trial, held on another sweltering day in Eastern France, Ferrand-Prévot and her team understandably hadn't yet worked out a plan on taking back the Tour.
"Well, there are several possible scenarios. It's true that right now I'm two minutes and 15 seconds behind Marlen," Ferrand-Prévot said.
"On the Madeleine, I managed to make up quite a bit of time. This year, Ventoux is a climb that's going to be long too, so there you go.
"It'll also depend on the others – how they're doing, how much progress they've made. It'll depend on a lot of things, but in any case I'll give it my all to try and claw back that 2:15."
Ventoux may be the day of days in terms of the GC battle. However, the upcoming pair of stages, a 140km ride to Belleville-en-Beaujolais featuring more elevation than Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and a similarly tough 153km ride to Tournon-sur-Rhône, both provide ample opportunity for Ferrand-Prévot and the rest of the contenders to gain time.
The fightback may well start on Wednesday, then, though Van Emden – a leading time trialist in the men's peloton during his racing days – was giving nothing away.
The team was "ready for every time loss," he said, adding that they knew losing such a large amount of time was a possibility during this stage – Ferrand-Prévot's first TT of this length since the French National Championships five years ago.
"Pauline is disappointed that Lieke [Nooijen] missed out on the stage by 4 seconds," was his response to a query about his leader's thoughts on the stage, before he shut down a question on team tactics.
"I have multiple scenarios in my backpack, so looking forward to that. I will never, ever give journalists insight into my thoughts about tactics. Never.
"This year is not last year, but everything is still possible. It could be [tomorrow], or it could be stage 6, stage 7, stage 8, or 9," he concluded with a smile.
Ferrand-Prévot wasn't disappointed by her ride on the day, she said, though she did admit to "feeling a bit silly" about the outcome.
"I gave it my all – it wasn't enough, but there you go," she said.
"I'm proud of having fought as hard as I could, even though I feel a bit silly today about what I managed to achieve. I've got no excuses. I was simply not strong enough, and that's that."
After riding the first stages in more of a defensive role as other punchier riders led the attacking, with Vollering picking up four bonus seconds on the opening day in Lausanne, Ferrand-Prévot and her team might have to switch things up in the coming days.
She said, however, that she's looking forward to the challenge of fighting from behind, though.
"We knew the first three stages were going to be really tough. Yesterday was really intense; it's true that towards the end they attacked and I really struggled to make it to that sprint bonus, so there you go," she said.
"I knew they weren't going to give me any breaks on the short climbs anyway. I know that'll be the case tomorrow too and the days after that, so there you go. Now there's nothing left to do but fight.
"In any case, I quite like this scenario of having to go after them rather than being the favourite myself, so it's going to be a good challenge."
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