'We still have to win a race before the year ends' – Alison Jackson and ambitious St Michel squad aim high at the Tour de France Femmes and beyond

Reigning champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and Demi Vollering's superteam FDJ United-SUEZ will be top of the list for home fans at the Tour de France Femmes this August, but beyond the biggest names at the top of the startlist, there's plenty more for France to get excited about.

St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93 are one of the five French squads lining up for Saturday's opener, with the team contributing three of the 25 French riders who will start the race.

Last summer, the team, one of the smallest in the race, made headlines as two of their riders, Alison Avoine and Elyne Roussel, tearfully battled against the time cut on stage 6. At the other end of the race, meanwhile, their top result was a ninth place with Spanish sprinter Alicia González.

For this season, its seventh in the pro peloton, the team have set their sights ever higher with new sponsorship on board in the form of Premier Tech and a new leader, former Paris-Roubaix Femmes winner Alison Jackson.

The Canadian racer is a figurehead of the team's new direction, having joined from US squad EF Education-Oatly in a surprise move last winter. Ahead of her fourth Tour start, she explained their outlook for the race.

"I think that the Tour is really hard. It's a very climbing-focussed Tour, so it's not made for me. But I think there are a lot of days to get in the action or take a chance," Jackson told Cyclingnews at the pre-race media day in Lausanne.

"The girls are really quite young, and I think we need to have more experience before we do a full GC ride, so we're just going to be stage hunting, trying to be a part of the race and in the action ahead of the race.

"Day one always is interesting because I think to be bold early, you don't know what's going to happen behind. But I mean, it's a 'risk it to win it all' sort of thing, as waiting for a sprint isn't a good play for me.

"Then stages 2 and 3 could be interesting if it comes down to a sprint. Otherwise, we'll suffer through all the climbs to make it to stage 8 and try to make something happen."

A stage victory would be a dream outcome for the squad, and for Jackson, who already has one Grand Tour stage under her belt, having sprinted to glory in Moncófar at La Vuelta Femenina two years ago.

This spring, she came close to another, finishing fourth in the breakaway behind Célia Gery. At the Tour, she'll be the team's best shot at a similar result, even if she hasn't yet scored a victory in 2026. Her teammates, meanwhile, have a trio of podiums to their name this season, so any win here would be a first for the squad.

"I would have liked to have won another Classic," Jackson said of her season.

"I've raced a lot of races and part of that is just to help set the tone for the team. So, we've been a part of a good part of the races, but we still have to win a race before the year ends.

"So maybe we do that here, or we have to leave it to World Championships, and we do."

Jackson and her teammates head to France off the back of a training camp in Boulder, Colorado. On the face of it, heading all the way to the USA may seem a strange decision for a French squad, but the camp, put on by team partner Skratch Labs, was all part of the future-facing outlook, Jackson said.

"The structure is different [to EF], but the resources are good. I've been riding Cannondale for a few years now, so to keep the same bike and sponsor has been super good.

"Then we've had so much support actually from Premier Tech coming into the team, and also from Skratch Labs, who hosted our camp. I think this team is where you can be experimental, and I think that's a really interesting thing at this time of my career – to have a bit more freedom to try some different training techniques or really explore different science.

"Some of it is just like equipment stuff. We're not so tied to a particular sponsor with the team, so we can test out and try some other bits of equipment. Also, as we choose to lead up for what races we want to target, we have a bit more say in how we want to do a training block before races, how we want to prepare more specifically."

We'll find out over the coming nine days whether Jackson and St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93 can upset the bigger names at the Tour and come away with a big result.

Beyond that, the women's programme will be the team's sole focus as the men's squad stops at the end of the season. With big goals for the team, they should be one to watch for the future.

"That's also what attracted me to the team – being a part of a project that they really want to grow into being a WorldTour team. I think we saw FDJ go from a club team to a pro team to a WorldTour to being an exceptionally good WorldTour team.

"The team's ambition is to grow, and they see me as having a good experience or a good say in helping the team accomplish that. I think in my last years in my career, it's nice to be part of a project."

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