Pauline Ferrand-Prevot already has a new plan: "I will try to win the Tour de France next year"

The French cyclist Pauline Ferrand-Prevot has been crowned Olympic champion in Paris, and with this title, it can be said that she has won everything in mountain biking. This marks a turning point in her sports career, as next year she will compete on the road, as she herself has pointed out after winning the gold medal.

Pauline Ferrand-Prevot puts the finishing touch to her MTB career and already thinks about the road

She had warned months ago that her time in mountain biking would end with the Paris Olympics, and there are already rumors about which road team she may join next year. But she has explained how she approached this event in Paris, what would have happened if she hadn't won, and what her next goals are.

Not even a gold medal will change her decision to retire from mountain biking, as this race was just a formality towards her new stage, regardless of the results: "I wanted to prepare for these Olympics, but I also needed to know what would happen afterwards", declared the 32-year-old Frenchwoman to the media after her historic gold medal. "I needed to free myself mentally and not be thinking 'should I continue or not?'. So this winter I made the decision to leave MTB."

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Ferrand-Prevot is the only person to date who has won the World Championship in road cycling, cyclocross, gravel, and MTB. During her road cycling stage, she won the World Championship and the Flèche Wallonne in the same year in 2014. Now she will start a new stage aiming as high as ever.

"Winning or not, I would have finished anyway. I don't see myself training for the Olympics again. It didn't make sense to me. I decided to leave MTB and I will return to the road. It will be official, I believe, the second week of August, which team I will join. But we already have a good project and I will be delighted to prepare to try to win the Tour de France next season."

Ferrand-Prevot's performance in the Paris Olympics has been at a much higher level than her competitors, and just looking at the time, she won with almost a 3-minute lead over the second-place finisher.

"I worked very hard for this. I wanted to give it my all... Today I felt incredible. I can't believe it!" she said. "I thought: 'it's not possible, it's not possible, it's not me, it's a dream'. And I was so happy to see my parents at the finish line. My coach said yesterday: 'Pauline has to treat this race like a normal race'. So I thought: 'okay, I'll pretend I'm in a UCI World Cup'. I wanted to stay on the wheel and then attack strongly and make them suffer. I felt quite strong and followed my own pace."

It remains to be confirmed whether Visma Lease a Bike will be her new team, and it is also unclear whether she will continue competing in MTB for the rest of this season, with the World Championship and several World Cup events still to come, or if she will start her road training already.