Pauline Ferrand-Prévot has confirmed that the upcoming World Championships would be the closing mountain bike race of her storied profession, admitting it feels ‘unusual’ to be retiring the knobbly tyres however that she’s ‘at peace’ with the choice.
The Frenchwoman has loved a vastly profitable profession on the mountain bike, successful 5 world titles and lately including Olympic gold, however she is focusing solely on street racing from 2025, leaving the Ineos Grenadiers set-up to be part of the devoted Visma-Lease a Bike girls’s staff.
In an emotional social media publish, Ferrand-Prévot confirmed she won’t compete within the remaining races within the World Cup sequence past the World Championships subsequent weekend, which she described as her “final dance”.
“In lower than per week I’ll take part at my final MTB World championship, but in addition at my final MTB race. Tbh [to be honest], sounds a bit unusual to write down that, however I’m feeling joyful and in peace with my choice, as I’ve a brand new purpose and a brand new problem on the street,” Ferrand-Prévot wrote.
“Over the previous years I bought to met unimaginable individuals, seen superb locations. For certain, this sport will keep the number one in my coronary heart.”
The 2024 MTB Worlds will carry some circularity to all of it, happening in Pal Arinsal in Andorra, the nation the place she claimed her first Elite XCO world title again in 2015. It got here on the again of world titles on the street and in cyclo-cross, in a rare run of rainbow success that has since been enhanced by her taking the first-ever Gravel World Championship in 2022.
With 5 XCO world titles – plus a pair extra in Quick-Monitor and Marathon – and now the Olympic XCO title to her title, Ferrand-Prévot feels she has achieved every little thing she will on the mountain bike and is now able to carry the curtain down, with an excellent probability of doing so with one other rainbow jersey.
“In 2015, I bought the gold medal right here in Andorra for my first Mtb Elite World title. I might be extraordinarily proud to closed this chapter of my life the identical approach. So, let’s have an excellent final dance,” she wrote.
“Merci to all the MTB group for what you carry to this sport. See you all subsequent week.”
Ferrand-Prévot, who gained the street race world title on the age of twenty-two, has not ridden a correct string of street races since 2018, when she was with Canyon-SRAM, whereas her fundamental interval of success was throughout her breakthrough in 2014 and 2015 with the staff she’s set to rejoin in 2025, then generally known as Rabobank. She has said her want to focus on the yellow jersey on the Tour de France Femmes.
