03-08-2025
This Olympic Champion Gave Herself Three Years to Win the Tour de France. She Only Needed One.
Before riding a single mile of the women's Tour de France, Pauline Ferrand-Prevot was already one of the most accomplished cyclists of all time—on any kind of bicycle, on any kind of terrain.
At 23, she had been a world champion in road cycling, mountain biking and cyclocross, the muddy winter sport that also features grass, sand, barriers and sometimes stairs. She was the first rider, man or woman, to hold the title in all three disciplines at once. Then, nearly a decade later, she became an Olympic champion at her home Games at Paris 2024.
