Pauline Ferrand-Prévot should be leaving for another Tour

A taste of coming back. Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, fifteen-time world champion in various cycling disciplines, Olympic champion, winner of the Paris-Roubaix and now winner of the first Tour de France in which she participated , still hasn't had enough. In the Netherlands, where she celebrated her title on Monday at the headquarters of her team, Visma-Lease a Bike, the cyclist opened the door to a new participation in the Tour de France next year.

A week ago, still not fully recovered from the harshness of the preparation and the ordeal, she wasn't sure she wanted to dive back into this "monk's life." But the rest finally paid off. "I want to do it again. I want to fight to win it again," the champion said. "I really love what I do, I don't see why I would stop." Then, faced with the journalist who retorted that she had given herself three years to win and that the challenge had been accepted , she laughed: "Yes, but I didn't say how many times..."

In the meantime, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot will still be sacrificing a few cycling events. She will skip the Road World Championships in Kigali, Rwanda, at the end of September. A "difficult decision to make" according to team manager Rutger Tijssen, but "a smart decision," the cyclist assures. "I also wanted to take advantage [of the post-Tour success]. If I had listened to myself, I would have already started preparing for the Road World Championships and I would already be at altitude. But in fact, I also need to take a breather, to take advantage of it to be better in the years to come. It's important to savor it and start preparing again a little later," she explained, again to L'Equipe .

The cyclist will return to competition at the end of August in Brittany, during the Classic Lorient Agglomération (Morbihan), then the Tour de l'Ardèche ten days later "to do another stage race." She will then continue with the European Championships in Drôme-Ardèche at the beginning of October. No time to catch her breath either.