Zonneveld and fellow analyst stunned by Ferrand-Prévot’s time-trial position: ‘She looked like a little old lady’

While Marlen Reusser and Demi Vollering shone in the Tour de France Femmes time trial, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot was left counting the cost. The defending champion from Visma | Lease a Bike lost more than two minutes to her main rivals. Dutch analysts Thijs Zonneveld and Jip van den Bos identified a poor position on the time-trial bike, although they still believe the Frenchwoman has every chance of turning the situation around.

It was clear from the starting ramp that Ferrand-Prévot’s position on the bike was far from ideal. “When you know that the last time she rode a time trial was five years ago, when she finished fifth at the French championships, and then you see how she is sitting on the bike — like a little old lady,” Zonneveld laughed on his In de Waaier podcast. “She was very high at the front, with her helmet sitting slightly crooked on her head... They did their best to limit the damage, but absolutely nothing about her says time-trial specialist.”

After the stage, Ferrand-Prévot explained that an old iliac artery injury prevented her from fully adopting an aerodynamic time-trial position. The Dutch analyst explained why that becomes particularly problematic during an effort against the clock. “When she goes too deep, the problem is that she cannot properly transfer her power because of those iliac arteries. That is always a potential danger, but it is even more of an issue for her because of that injury.”

Van den Bos acknowledged that the time Ferrand-Prévot lost was significant. “But I don’t know whether it is too much. I also don’t find it particularly surprising. In my mind, she performed roughly as expected. Losing two minutes to Reusser does not strike me as especially strange. You are comparing the best female time trialist in the world with someone who had not ridden a time trial for five years.”

Reusser won the time trial and moved into the yellow jersey in the process. Vollering finished third, only seventeen seconds behind the Swiss world champion. That leaves her just fourteen seconds behind the race leader, while she already holds an advantage of almost a minute over rivals such as Elisa Longo Borghini and Kasia Niewiadoma. Ferrand-Prévot, meanwhile, must find a way to recover approximately two minutes.

Zonneveld therefore regarded Reusser and Vollering as Tuesday’s biggest winners. “Vollering was walking around with a huge smile on her face. Reusser gained the most, which seems logical to me. She is also a genuinely strong climber, although in principle she is not among the three very best climbers. When you look at the time Vollering gained on the other general-classification contenders, she must have sat down for dinner with a fantastic feeling.”

Ferrand-Prévot does belong among the race’s strongest climbers, having left everybody behind in the mountains last year. She eventually won the Tour de France Femmes by three minutes and 42 seconds over Vollering. A deficit of around two minutes therefore appears recoverable, meaning the Dutchwoman cannot afford to celebrate too early. Van den Bos is also well aware of that.

“She also knows that this was necessary if she wanted to win the Tour,” Van den Bos explained. “If Ferrand-Prévot climbs as well as she did last year, Vollering needed to take that one minute and 55 seconds in the time trial ahead of Mont Ventoux. And was Vollering really so much worse a year ago that she has now been able to close that three-minute gap? She wasn’t that bad last year either. She is extremely good now, but I don’t believe the difference between them is three minutes.”