Pauline Ferrand-Prévot Has No Excuses as Yellow Jersey Dream Evaporates

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot may have been excused for hemorrhaging time Tuesday in the stage 4 time trial of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.

She had not raced against the clock since she returned to road racing, after all.

There was no excuse for the pure climber Wednesday in the terrain that suits her best.

Ferrand-Prévot’s yellow jersey defense all but evaporated on stage 5 after Demi Vollering and FDJ United-Suez put the hammer down in a brutal climbing stage through the vineyards of the Beaujolais.

“I felt quite good to be honest,” Ferrand-Prévot told TV cameras at the finish. “I was simply dropped on the steep section of the penultimate climb.

“But I can’t say I felt bad or that I had a moment of weakness,” she said. “I think the others were simply much stronger.”

Ferrand-Prévot was one of the first to be shelled on the Cat 3. Col de Durbize at 30km to go Wednesday as Vollering began her all-out offensive on race leader Marlen Reusser.

PFP never made it back into contention.

Her yellow jersey dream vanished up the road as Vollering, Reusser, and Kasia Niewiadoma went on to prove themselves the strongest all-rounders in the race.

Ferrand-Prévot limped to the line, 2:35 back. It’s a single-day deficit even more damaging than the 2:13 she lost Tuesday in the Dijon TT.

Ferrand-Prévot’s hopes rest on the climb of Ventoux

Ferrand-Prévot had started the 2026 Tour de France Femmes this weekend as a favorite.

The Tour’s home hero is now 5 minutes away from the yellow jersey and questioning her preparation.

The 34-year-old and her Visma-Lease a Bike team took the high-risk strategy of opting for a training-heavy season at the cost of racing kilometers this year.

It was a plan that worked to perfection when Ferrand-Prévot won both Paris-Roubaix and the Tour de France Femmes in 2025.

The time around, it might have backfired.

Having amassed only 17 race days since January, Ferrand-Prévot’s top-end wasn’t there when she needed it most on Wednesday’s explosive 5th stage.

“A time trial is very different. You mainly need a lot of power,” Ferrand-Prévot said at the finish.

“Today, you needed to climb well and have a little more explosiveness. That is what I am missing at the moment. It is simply an honest assessment. I do not want to fool myself.”

Ferrand-Prévot’s hopes now rest entirely on Friday’s gruesome 16km summit finish to Mont Ventoux.

In 2025, the French veteran blew the peloton apart on the Col du Madeleine in the penultimate stage of the Tour.

It was a long-range raid that put a lock on the yellow jersey within sight of the overall finish line.

In 2026, Ferrand-Prévot can only hope for a similar climbing rout on stage 7’s climb of the infamous “Giant of Provence.”

But in reality, those mythical slopes are looking very steep for her right now.

“I haven’t seen the gap yet but I think it’s over,” Ferrand-Prévot said at the finish line. “We have to refocus, to change the plan maybe.

“Mont Ventoux will be another new day and another battle,” she vowed. “We are going to give everything there.”

The time losses weren’t the end of the bad news for Ferrand-Prévot on Wednesday.

UCI commissaires also fined her 250 CHF and docked her 15 UCI points for tossing a bottle outside a litter zone.