Bytager the publication "Pauline Ferrand-Prévôt facing the challenge of Rwanda: the weight of performance, the weight of choices"
Two days ago, the news broke: Pauline Ferrand-Prévôt will be competing in the upcoming World Championships in Rwanda. Just one month after the announcement, two months after her triumph at the Tour de France Femmes, and on the eve of what promises to be the most demanding World Championship in history, the question arises: how to maintain such fitness, and above all, how to maintain the weight that has been so much talked about?
By Jeff Tatard – Photos: Tornati CC/Prologo / in thetagram Pauline Ferrand-Prevot
Because behind the feat, there is the debateBy choosing to slim down his body by a few kilos to maximize his power-to-weight ratio, PFP adopted a supervised strategy that paid off. But as we approach Rwanda and its endless climbs, everyone is wondering:
• Will it retain this “Tour” weight?
• Will she necessarily take some more? to recover better before possibly losing again?
• Is it even realistic to imagine that an athlete of this level can stay “on the line”? for two months, without it having a physiological and mental cost?
A thin line
Thinness in cycling is not a new topic. Climbers have always played with this limit: finding the ideal weight, the one where the body doesn't carry a single gram of excess weight, but where it retains all its strength. It's a ridge line. And as is often the case in high mountain climbing,tagno, one wrong step and the fall can be brutal: loss of power, chronic fatigue, injuries, eating disorders.
What Pauline Ferrand-Prévôt is experiencing today is the maximum exposure of this dilemma.She has found her key to the Tour. But the danger is believing that this weight must become the permanent norm. However, ideal weight is not a figure set in stone: it varies according to the season, the goals, and the athlete's overall balance.
Rwanda, a test last
We wrote about the 2025 World Cup route a year ago after Pogacar's victory: It will probably be the toughest world championship in history.Steep African slopes, a punishing climate, extreme intensity. Here again, you don't just win by losing grams: you win by preserving freshness, optimal recovery, and intact mental resilience.
So what's going to happen?
In the short term, it is likely that PFP will have to ease off some pressure, gain some weight, and then adjust again in preparation for Rwanda.This cycle is normal, almost necessary. But the important thing isn't how much she'll weigh on the scales on the morning of the World Cup. The important thing is whether she'll be able to combine power, freshness, and confidence—because the body is nothing more than a tool at the service of the mind.
The real issue: the message
Beyond the champion, it's the message that counts. Cycling has too often maintained a fascination with thinness, as if it were the only condition for success. However, It's not being thin that makes you win: it's being strong, balanced, whole.
PFP's Tour victory will remain historicBut if his triumph in Rwanda were to come about, let us hope that it will be read differently: not as an apology for an extremely honed body, but as a demonstration of a rare intelligence, a sense of preparation, an ability to play with one's resources without ever getting burned.
Because deep down, This is the real secret of champions: not to weigh less, but to know how to weigh their choices..
