Ferrand-Prévot makes history as first Gravel World Champion

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In her first-ever gravel race, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (France) added to her extensive collection of rainbow jerseys by carrying off the inaugural elite women’s UCI Gravel World Championships after beating Sina Frei (Switzerland) in a two-up sprint in Cittadella.

Ferrand-Prévot, winner of a historic hat-trick of world titles at the Mountain Bike World Championships in Les Gets in August, lined up as the consensus favourite in the Veneto despite her lack of experience in this specific discipline and she duly lived up to her billing.

After pressing clear of the decisive four-rider break with Frei on the kick into the walled town of Cittadella, Ferrand-Prévot unleashed a crisp sprint to take her fourth rainbow jersey in a little over a month. A few seconds later, Chiara Teocchi (Italy) won her duel with Jade Treffeisen (Germany) to take bronze.

Barbara Guarischi (Italy), fifth at 27 seconds, and Tiffany Cromwell (Australia), sixth at 40 seconds, were the best of the chasers, whose unwieldy group fragmented definitively in the closing stages of the 140km-long race.

“I think I did a perfect race,” said Ferrand-Prévot. “I knew if it was a sprint finish with a small group I was going to win. It was the perfect tactic for me, and I can't believe I won today.”

In 2015, Ferrand-Prévot held three rainbow jerseys simultaneously after adding the cyclo-cross crown to the road and the mountain bike titles she had won the previous year. The Frenchwoman is now the holder of four concurrent world titles and her tally of rainbow jerseys across all disciplines now stands at ten.

“I'm not thinking of the previous ones, I just want to enjoy this podium and enjoy the day,” she said. "I am happy, I like winning.”

Already prominent at the head of the race on the lone climb, the short but stiff early ascent up Monte Berico, Ferrand-Prévot was later the main driver of the decisive move, which began to take shape with a little under 60km to go.

From there, the race was one of attrition. When the gallant Lauren Stephens (USA), who has ridden three World Championships in three different disciplines this past month, was distanced with 35km remaining, only four riders were left at the front: mountain bikers Ferrand-Prévot, Frei and Teocchi, and the gravel specialist Treffeisen, who was a consistent performer across the UCI Gravel Series this season.

At that point, their lead over the chasers was hovering around the one-minute mark, though Ferrand-Prévot later found herself attempting to cajole her companions into greater collaboration on the approach to the striking walled town of Cittadella.

“I was feeling strong, and I knew also had to pull quite well because otherwise, the others would say: ‘OK, we don't ride with you.’ So I was trying to motivate them to just keep pushing,” said Ferrand-Prévot. “It worked perfectly. In the end, I knew I had to be in second position and try to sprint. I made it. It was exactly what I was waiting for."

How it unfolded

This may have been Ferrand-Prévot’s first competitive outing on gravel, but it was clear even before the start in Vicenza that she was not here simply to make up the numbers or to placate her sponsors. Half an hour before the off, Ferrand-Prévot was going through the scales on the turbo trainer, an ominous sight for the rest of the 50-strong peloton as they made their way to sign on.

The Italian team also elected to warm en masse on the rollers with an eye to making the race as selective as possible on the day’s early – and solitary – climb, the haul up to the basilica at Monte Berico, where Philippe Gilbert claimed stage victory on the 2015 Giro d’Italia.

The anticipated selection didn’t quite materialise at Monte Berico, even though Ferrand-Prévot signalled her intent with an early acceleration, but the race was still lined out significantly by the time they came off the gravel and onto the smooth, portico-lined road that led to the top. It was striking, too, that so many of the riders who would figure deep into the race – Ferrand-Prévot, Cromwell, Stephens and Frei – were all placed at the front on that ascent.

“The first part was really cool, because of the hill, but in the end, we had a long way to go in a small group,” said Frei, who admitted that she would have preferred significantly more climbing on the route.

15km or so later, Ferrand-Prévot was briefly clear once more, this time with Frei, Teocchi, Stephens, Annabel Fisher (Great Britain) and Sofia Gomez Villafane (Argentina). And, inevitably, the Frenchwoman was promptly on the scene when Teocchi attacked with a shade under 60km remaining, triggering what proved to be the winning move.

Behind, the Italian squad combined to disrupt the pursuit of Cromwell et al, though the strength of the leading quintet was such that they might have struggled to bring them back in any case. On flat terrain that flitted between single track sections and wider stretches of gravel road, Ferrand-Prévot et al maintained their buffer over the chasers all the way to Cittadella.

Stephens, for one, could vouch for the power of that high-calibre front group. “I knew I was suffering, but I thought I could conserve. But then with about 35km to go, I started cramping and I couldn’t hold the wheel,” she said afterwards. “I fell back through two groups and even on the last pair of switchbacks, I totally cramped and had to walk up the hill.”

Ferrand-Prévot, meanwhile, was content to get to Cittadella with the group largely intact, though Frei made one final effort to shake her loose on the muddy climb to the citadel. Frei was able to burn off Treffeisen and Teocchi, but Ferrand-Prévot was immovable and the outcome inevitable. Or, as Ferrand-Prévot put it: “If it came to the sprint, I thought I was almost unbeatable.”