Pauline Ferrand-Prévot made her highly-anticipated return to road racing with Visma-Lease a Bike at the UAE Tour last month but said that was just a warm-up and that her first big target will take place at Strade Bianche in Siena on Saturday.
The French multi-discipline champion signed a three-year contract with the Dutch team through to the end of 2027, in what was a highly-publicised transfer from Ineos Grenadiers' off-road team.
The 15-time elite World Champion and 2024 mountain biking Olympic Champion has now committed to the road full-time, and while she began her season at the UAE Tour, she said her focus was on Strade Bianche, the revived Milan-San Remo Women and in the future, the Tour de France Femmes.
At the four-day UAE Tour, Ferrand-Prévot finished 17th overall, 5:18 behind overall winner Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ). Asked if she was disappointed with her performance, she said, "Not at all."
"I was not expecting much from the UAE Tour; just to be back in the bunch and with my teammates to get to know each other."
Ferrand-Prévot said that she has been steadily preparing specifically for the Spring Classics, with Strade Bianche as her first major race that she aims to do well at among her rivals in the peloton.
"Tomorrow will be the first test of the season. If I don't do well tomorrow, maybe I will be a bit disappointed because I trained hard for it. But the UAE Tour was just a warm-up."
The women's peloton will compete across a 136km race that features one additional gravel sector this year for a total of 50km split across 13 sectors of off-road - a route that should perfectly suit gravel and mountain bike specialists in the field such as Ferrand-Prévot and Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Alpecin).
Ferrand-Prévot said that seeing more and more mountain bike riders competing on the road and for top-tier teams has been nice and that they could have a slight advantage at a race like Strade Bianche.
"Yes ... it is not the same technique or handling on the bike but, for sure, we are used to this, and not scared of the speed. I think it's good that more MTB riders are coming in and can show the MTB discipline," she said.
Ferrand-Prévot made history in the 2014-2015 season at the age of 23 when she became the first cyclist to hold world titles in the three disciplines simultaneously. She won the elite women's road race world title in 2014 Ponferrada, the XCO cross-country world title in 2015 in Vallnord, and the cyclo-cross world title in 2015 in Tabor. Since then, she has amassed a total of 15 elite world titles across road, mountain bike, cyclocross and gravel.
Although she hasn't raced a full road season since 2018, outside of competing at the French Road Championships in 2019 and 2021, she will be a key rider to watch on the 2025 Women's WorldTour, and certainly at Strade Bianche this weekend.
"I have prepared myself very well [for Strade Bianche], and it's why I have good motivation for tomorrow," she said.
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