“PFP” is back at the top of world mountain biking. The French Pauline Ferrand-Prévot shone at the Worlds in Les Gets (Haute-Savoie), winning Friday during the short track event, two days before the cross-country race where she is aiming for a fourth coronation.
In the pouring rain, the 30-year-old Habs struggled for a long time with several riders, including the Italian Greta Seiwald and the Swiss Alessandra Keller, but she was able to accelerate three laps from the end to outrun her opponents and finish alone. on your mind. She finished the race in 21′56″, 18 seconds ahead of Switzerland’s Alessandra Keller, and 21 seconds over American Gwendalyn Gibson.
” I am really happy. I didn’t leave very quickly and I saved a little to launch my attack. Afterwards, I managed to keep a good pace and it ended well, ”she reacted after the race, enjoying her new rainbow jersey.
World champion on the road in 2014 and in cyclo-cross in 2015, three times titled in cross-country, the Champenoise added on Friday to her impressive record a world title in short track, very short race format (7 loops of 1, 2 km to Les Gets) and fast (about 20 minutes).
Cross-country in sight
After a “rather timid” start to the season, in his own words, with the only international podium being a silver medal in cross-country at the European Championships in Germany last week, Ferrand-Prévot confirmed with this victory his regaining form, before the flagship event of the World Mountain Bike Championships on Sunday.
She is aiming for a fourth world cross-country title in Les Gets, an Olympic discipline at the 2024 Paris Games, and would thus equal the record of the Norwegian Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesjå. Her main rival will be Loana Lecomte, great hope of French mountain biking, who did not take part in the short track.
