Pauline Ferrand-Prévôt will not finish the 2026 Tour de France Femmes. The 34-year-old Frenchwoman did not start the 8th stage on Saturday, August 8, between Sisteron and Nice. The defending champion was feeling unwell that morning and, after consulting with the medical team, the decision was made to end her Tour. Already lagging behind in the general classification and struggling for several days, the Visma-Lease a Bike leader was in 14th place, 14 minutes and 37 seconds behind the Yellow Jersey, Kasia Niewiadoma.
Pauline Ferrand-Prévôt did not feel well upon waking up
The decision came a few hours before the start of stage 8. Pauline Ferrand-Prévôt was not feeling well enough to continue the race. After consulting with the medical staff, her team decided not to field her. This withdrawal brings a premature end to a difficult Tour de France for the Frenchwoman, who arrived with the ambition of defending her title but never managed to regain the expected form. The day before, on Mont Ventoux, the decisive climb of the queen stage, Ferrand-Prévôt quickly lost contact with the main contenders for the overall victory. "If you don't have the legs, you lose time. That's what happened. There's no point in having regrets. Sometimes you work hard and it doesn't necessarily pay off ," she acknowledged after the finish.
The first signs appeared after stage 3
Her manager and coach, Rutger Tijssen, explained that Pauline Ferrand-Prévôt's difficulties didn't appear suddenly. Several signs had begun to worry the support team from the very first days of the race. "There were small signs, of course. And signs that started after the third stage. She wasn't feeling well, not herself, not able to run the way she wanted to," he explained. According to him, the problem couldn't simply be identified through performance data: "It's not really about the numbers, more about observing the athlete, her demeanor. And then, little by little, she spirals downward."
"His tank was constantly emptying."
As the stages progressed, the situation deteriorated. "It didn't start at a specific moment. But gradually, we saw her energy reserves dwindling ," explained Rutger Tijssen. The Frenchwoman's inability to keep up the pace during the 5th stage was another warning sign for her team. "When she couldn't maintain the intensity on the 5th stage, the signs obviously become clearer ," added her coach. The French champion nevertheless continued until Mont Ventoux, where the gaps definitively dashed her hopes in the general classification.
No clearly identified recovery problems
The Visma-Lease a Bike team management had not observed any sudden disruption in Pauline Ferrand-Prévôt's recovery throughout the week. "No, not really. Because we work day by day, we see things happening gradually," explained Rutger Tijssen when asked about potential recovery difficulties between stages.
The manager now believes that work will need to be done after the race to understand precisely the reasons for this gradual decline: "Ultimately, we will have to understand what happened here for her, and analyze it."
The defending champion leaves the Tour before Nice
Pauline Ferrand-Prévôt has therefore withdrawn from the Tour de France Femmes before its conclusion, with the 8th stage scheduled to run from Sisteron to Nice. The 34-year-old Frenchwoman had come to defend her title but quickly found herself out of contention for the overall victory. After several difficult days and a significant loss of time on Mont Ventoux, her physical condition on Saturday morning ultimately led her team to abandon the race. Her 2026 Tour thus ends one stage from the finish, leaving her team with a crucial question: what caused this gradual decline in form throughout the week?
