Tour de France Femmes: Ferrand-Prévot closes on home glory after dazzling win
The 33-year-old from Reims crushed the hopes of the defending champion Kasia Niewiadoma and 2023 winner Demi Vollering on the steep, narrow road to the 2,000m mountain top, in the Haute Savoie region.
The pivotal moment came 12 kilometres from the top of the Madeleine when the Australian climber Sarah Gigante pulled clear of the favourites, with Pauliena Rooijakkers and Ferrand-Prévot in pursuit.
But the French rider benefited from her Visma-Lease-a-bike team's tactics, of having Marion Bunol in the early break, waiting ahead to pace her up the climb.
The overnight leader Kim Le Court, Niewiadoma and Vollering were all cut adrift, as they had little or no response to Ferrand-Prévot's climbing speed.
Ferrand-Prévot is now in pole position to become the first French cyclist to win the Tour de France since Bernard Hinault in 1985. But there is still more climbing to come.
Sunday's stage to Chatel may not include as much elevation as the finish on the Madeleine, but the double whammy of the tortuous Col de Joux Plane and the final cruelty of the Col du Corbier will create further gaps.
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The Guardian
4 hours ago
- The Guardian
Tour de France Femmes: Ferrand-Prévot closes on home glory after dazzling win
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, the Olympic mountain bike gold medallist at Paris 2024, took a commanding overall lead in the Tour de France Femmes after a spectacular lone victory at the summit of the Col de la Madeleine. With one stage remaining in the nine-day race, the 33-year-old from Reims is on the verge of ending French cycling's 40 years wait by ending the long wait for a successor to Bernard Hinault's 1985 win in the men's Tour de France. Ferrand-Prévot, unlike many of those watching at the roadside, held back the tears until after an embrace from the Tour director, Marion Rousse. 'I've realised a little girl's dream, it's a perfect day,' Ferrand-Prévot said after taking the yellow jersey. 'I have to thank the public and my family who were here at the roadside.' Her solo success on the Tour's queen stage went beyond the host country's highest expectations and crushed the hopes of the defending champion, Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney, as well as the 2023 champion, Demi Vollering, who were left behind on the long climb to the 2,000m Haute-Savoie mountain top. 'It was a big effort for over an hour, hour and a half of climbing, and I had to manage it,' Ferrand-Prévot said. 'But it's really been a team effort all week and it's as much for them as it is for me.' For a Visma-Lease a Bike team who were once again dominated by Tadej Pogacar in the men's Tour de France, it was a sweet success. With just the final stage, from Praz-sur-Arly to Châtel, remaining, Ferrand-Prévot leads the Australian climber Sarah Gigante by more than two-and-a-half minutes and Vollering by three minutes and 18 seconds. Niewiadoma-Phinney is a further half-minute behind. Ferrand-Prévot said: 'I've still got to finish the job, but one year after the Games in Paris, to win here, on this mythic climb, it's incredible.' The sense the race had been unsettled before the summit finishes was emphasised by the stop-start racing on the approach to the beyond category summit finish on the Madeleine, where the fight for the yellow jersey finally began. The pivotal moment came 12km from the summit when Gigante pulled clear of the favourites, with Pauliena Rooijakkers and Ferrand-Prévot in pursuit. Gigante, teammate to the overnight race leader, Kim Le Court, has struggled to keep pace on the descents, but her rapid climbing has compensated for that shortcoming. This time, though, Ferrand-Prévot was quick to respond to her sharp acceleration and the pair soon joined forces. The French rider also benefited from her Visma-Lease a Bike team's tactics. Marion Bunol went in the early break, waiting ahead to pace her teammate up the climb. That gave her the respite she needed, before she dropped her final companion, Niamh Fisher-Black, five kilometres from the finish. Le Court, Niewiadoma-Phinney and Vollering had little or no meaningful response so Ferrand-Prévot's climbing speed. It was a tough day for Le Court. The descending speed that had saved her overall lead on the previous stage to Chambéry let her down 24 hours later, when she raced too fast into a tight left-hand bend and somersaulted into a ditch. Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion None of her rivals waited for the race leader as she got to her feet and remounted. If anything the peloton of favourites pushed on even harder as Le Court dropped almost a minute behind. However, in the valley road leading to the next climb, the Côte de Saint-Georges d'Hurtières, the peloton slowed and Le Court rejoined the main group. After that, she led the way at the foot of the Madeleine, hoping to set up Gigante. Her efforts were not in vain, but she and Gigante had not factored in Ferrand-Prévot's extended climbing powers. 'Other teams don't know what's coming,' Le Court had said of Gigante's climbing skills. But they had reckoned without Ferrand-Prévot. Now drawing huge crowds to the roadside and growing TV audiences, the fourth edition of the Tour Femmes, has built further on the success of the first three. 'I really felt something big was happening,' Rousse said. 'I had tears in my eyes. I was a little overwhelmed because women's cycling has come so far.' Rousse also revealed that Christian Prudhomme, director of the men's Tour, had said to her: 'I no longer see any difference between the two Tours de France.'
Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Daily Mail
It's as if Lewis Hamilton knows time has sped past him... his sad deterioration began long before he became Ferrari's £60m-a-year vanity project, writes JONATHAN McEVOY
It was one of the saddest sights I have seen at a track, mortal tragedy aside. Here was one of the gods of motor racing holding his gloves over his visor to hide his tangled emotions from scrutiny. A few minutes later, he stood before the television cameras inviting Ferrari to sack him from his £60million-a-year job, after qualifying in 12th place for Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix. At 40, it was if he knew time had sped past him on the outside. Not quite monosyllabic but brief in his answers, he told Sky: 'I'm useless, absolutely useless. 'The team have no problem. You've seen the car's on pole. 'So we probably need to change driver.' Seeing Lewis Hamilton hide his emotions on Saturday was one of the saddest sights I've seen The seven-time world champion told Ferrari to replace him after qualifying 12th in Hungary He has been consistently outqualified and outpaced by his team-mate Charles Leclerc And he walked off to do his print session, which lasted all of 59 seconds. While he was hiding his visor, Charles Leclerc was putting the identical machinery on pole position, one so unexpected that the Monegasque said he no longer understood sport. How Hamilton can compute what is happening to him is impossible to know. He has been outgunned by Leclerc in qualifying 10 times to four. Now, Leclerc is as fast as a bullet over a single lap as there is. But since when was Hamilton, aka the GOAT, excused by any comparison? Leclerc has scored 30 points more than the Englishman in 13 races, not the most damning statistic actually. But week after week, circuit after circuit, it is Leclerc with the greater speed. You look up and, lo and behold, there is three-tenths between them. And here of all places! Where Hamilton has won a record eight times and taken pole nine times. It has been a shrine of revival in dark seasons. Where he won after a previously podium-free 2009 campaign. That day he climbed out of his troublesome McLaren and asked how far he was off the championship lead. Hamilton was thinking of launching an absurdly impossible title challenge. It's how his mind works. He is hard-wired for winning. Second place kills him as badly as last. But is the flesh still willing? A slight, almost imperceptible, deterioration has set in over the last four years. Little bits fell off the old invincibility. Did his nerve wane, or were his eyes the culprits, when he was no longer threading his silver Mercedes through vanishing holes with the elan of old? His move to Ferrari was a vanity project, rustled up by president John Elkann, a scion of the Agnelli clan, with no appreciable liking of motor racing. But Hamilton's allure lay in his fame, the most recognised driver in the world in the red car of legend. What could be better? Except they failed to notice Hamilton was beaten across two of the three seasons he spent as team-mate of George Russell. He was carted into the confectionery store and back out again in qualifying last year, 19-5 to be luridly exact. Yes, Russell is a very fine driver, but whither the GOAT? He has had so much joy at the Hungaroring down the years with as many as eight race wins The season is not an absolute disaster - he sits sixth in the standings - but he wanted a title Bringing him to Ferrari was a vanity project rustled up by Ferrari president John Elkann That was the question, too, when Hamilton drove so abjectly in rain-soaked Sao Paulo last year that I could scarcely believe what I was seeing. Could this possibly be the same Hamilton who once had webbed feet? At Silverstone in 2008 he won by more than a minute in a pool of danger, building his own monument to sporting greatness. Hamilton needed a new beginning to kickstart him, or so he tried to convince himself, refusing to give in to the truth that his powers were dimming. He shocked Mercedes by terminating his contract, forgoing the status as a Mercedes man for life and the trappings that would come with such loyalty, to fulfil a boyhood dream at the Scuderia. Toto Wolff was dumbfounded at Mercedes. But Elkann and co sounded the trumpets in Maranello. I was there when the bridge over Ferrari's Fiorano test track was crammed a dozen deep and passing lorries hooted their horns in his first outing in a Ferrari. He, his father, mother and stepmother then went out for dinner with Enzo Ferrari's son, Piero, in the back room of the Montana restaurant that Michael Schumacher called his favourite, supping in the genius loci, the magic of the place. But it was typical Ferrari. What about the car? Or the fact Hamilton was three years older than Schumacher when he was pensioned off to make way for Kimi Raikkonen? And so the season started, with Hamilton overwearing the excuse, proffered early, that nothing special should be expected soon. He factored in adjustment to his new environment, to a non-Mercedes engine for the first time and to an unfamiliar car. Fine up to a point, but not knowing where the wet switch was on his steering wheel when he made his debut in Melbourne seemed a touch negligent. He conspicuously failed to hit it off with race engineer Riccardo Adami. They were constantly squabbling over the team radio. Warning signs flashed. In recent weeks, Hamilton has been jotting ideas down for improvements for the car and to the team's operation. But last night he was beyond hope. Asked if rain would be welcome today, he said: 'I don't think anything can help me right now.' Toto Wolff was dumfounded when Hamilton announced that he wantd to leave Mercedes A deterioration has set in over the last four years - his form is not just related to Ferrari It has been a Lewis trait all his career to pick himself up from sloughs of despair. 'Still I Rise,' he is apt to say, citing Maya Angelou. 'It's not how you go down, but how you get up,' is another favourite. Can he still do that? Conversely, might he even quit over the summer break? Will he get to finish his 'masterpiece' on his own terms? Stubborn, resilient, essentially talented, he might. But I fear not. His despondency here, woeful form all season, and his advancing years suggest that we may have witnessed a staging post in Hamilton's journey to the destination he cannot contemplate. Retirement.
The Guardian
6 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘I'm absolutely useless': Lewis Hamilton says Ferrari should replace him after qualifying 12th
Lewis Hamilton berated his performance in qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix on Saturday as 'useless' and emphasised it with an entirely uncharacteristic act of self-flagellation, saying Ferrari needed to replace him. Hamilton was knocked out in 12th, while his Ferrari teammate, Charles Leclerc, went on to take pole position for Sunday's race, the first the Scuderia has claimed this year. Hamilton did not have an issue with his car on his final run in Q2 in Budapest nor was he impeded, he was simply not quick enough to go through, more than two-tenths down on Leclerc and took himself to task for his shortcoming. 'It's me every time. I'm useless, absolutely useless,' he said. 'The team have no problem. You've seen the car's on pole. So we probably need to change driver.' He had signalled his own frustration immediately after completing the below-par lap, admonishing himself as he told his team: 'Every time, every time.' When he climbed from the car he walked to the Ferrari motorhome holding his gloves in front of his visor. His exasperation was doubtless compounded by what he called an 'unacceptable' error in qualifying at the last round in Belgium, where he could manage only 16th on the grid. Moreover, the Hungaroring is a circuit where the 40-year-old has a record second to none, eight wins and nine poles. However, this is the fourth time Hamilton failed to make the top 10 in qualifying this season and has been beaten over the single lap by Leclerc in 10 of the 14 meetings and is 30 points behind him in the standings. Expectations for the seven-time champion had been huge when he joined Ferrari this season after 12 years at Mercedes, but the transition has been difficult. Adapting to the new car and team is proving a challenge and although he took a win in the sprint race in China he has yet to make the podium this season, the longest period he has gone without making it into the top three. The championship leader, Oscar Piastri, and his title rival Lando Norris had been expected to fight for pole, but the McLaren men had to settle for second and third respectively. Leclerc saw off Piastri by 0.026 seconds, with Norris 0.015secs behind the Australian. George Russell finished fourth for Mercedes. Leclerc said: 'I don't understand anything in Formula One. Honestly, the whole qualifying was extremely difficult. It was difficult for us to get to Q2, it was difficult for us to get to Q3. In Q3, the conditions changed a little bit. Everything became a lot trickier and I knew I just had to do a clean lap to target third. Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion 'It's pole position. I definitely did not expect that. It's probably one of the best pole positions I've ever had. It's the most unexpected, for sure.'
