Ferrand-Prévot's Tour Femmes title defence hit by time trial setback: 'I've got no excuses'
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot’s Tour de France Femmes defence suffered a setback in the stage 4 time trial to Dijon, where she conceded 2:13 to new yellow jersey Marlen Reusser and almost two minutes to chief rival Demi Vollering.
Favourite us on Google
The Frenchwoman had to settle for 14th place on the stage, and she now occupies the same position on GC, leaving her with significant ground to make up in the second half of the race.
Ferrand-Prévot was an empathic winner of last year’s Tour Femmes, but the race didn’t feature a team trial. Indeed, Tuesday’s stage was only her third competitive outing in a time trial in the past decade.
“I didn’t know what to expect, so I can’t be disappointed,” Ferrand-Prévot said, according to RMC. “I gave it my all. It wasn’t enough, but I’m proud that I fought hard. I wasn’t as strong. I’ve got no excuses.”
Ferrand-Prévot’s time trial position looked rather less aerodynamic than those of her rivals, and she acknowledged that a longstanding iliac artery issue had played a role in devising the set-up together with her Visma Lease a Bike team.
“We tried to take everything in consideration with my iliac artery, but we did some wind tunnel testing, and it showed that it was the fastest,” she said. “I looked like I was a bit ‘up,’ but at the end it was the fastest, so we said we’d just go for it and yeah. I think I did my best today. It is the most important for me. I can be proud of this.”
Ferrand-Prévot downplayed the impact of the soaring temperatures on her performance in the 21km test. “With the heat, I didn’t feel at my best, but it was the same for everyone,” she said. “I tried to go all out and focus on myself, pushing as hard as I possibly could.”
Twelve months ago, Ferrand-Prévot forged her Tour Femmes victory with a crushing display on the Col de la Madeleine, and it seems her 2026 challenge has been built around trying to repeat the feat on Mont Ventoux, which features on Friday.
This time out, however, she looks set to reach the foot of the Tour’s pivotal climb with a hefty deficit to make up on the other contenders. She is 2:13 off Reusser’s yellow jersey, 1:59 behind Vollering and 1:04 down on 2024 champion Kasia Niewiadoma.
“Right now, I’m two minutes behind Marlen,” Ferrand-Prévot said. “Last year on the Madeleine, I managed to make up quite a bit of time. The Ventoux will also be a long climb. It’ll depend on a lot of things, but I’ll give it my all to make up the time.”
Speaking to international media, Ferrand-Prévot suggested that she might find a way to make her deficit work to her advantage once the Tour Femmes hits the high mountains.
“It’s also good now not to be the favourite,” she said. “It’s like, ‘OK, I need to catch them,’ and that’s also something I like.”
Race result: 2026 Tour de France Femmes - Stage 4
Factor: Your Ticket to the Tour
Factor Bikes is a high-performance bicycle manufacturer and engineering-first brand, building the fastest UCI-legal racing bikes in the world. We design, prototype, and manufacture our frames in-house, enabling unmatched speed of innovation and uncompromising control over performance.
