Pauline Ferrand-Prevot is “definitely ready” to take on her first road race in more than three years at the Zurich World Championships on Saturday, said Ineos Grenadier's coach, Kurt Bogarts.

Bogaerts has worked with Ferrand-Prevot since she joined the British team at the end of 2022 as the only female rider on the team, with the goal of winning Olympic mountain bike gold, something she has had difficulty achieving in her illustrious career.

Ferran-Prevot, who achieved that goal with a dominant performance at her hometown Paris Games in August, ended her MTB career at the World Championships in Andorra last month and is now focused on winning the Tour de France Femmes with her new team, Visma Lease-a-Bike, in 2025! He is now focused on his goal of winning the Tour de France Femmes in 2025 with his new team, Visma Ries a Bike.

But first, 32-year-old Ferran Prevot will make her long-awaited return to road competition this weekend on the 154.1km Zurich Pal course as part of the powerful French team, 10 years after winning the road world championship in Ponferrada, Spain.

“I think she can be very successful, and with the way she trains, she is definitely ready to make the switch to the road,” Bogaerts told Cycling News before the world championships.

“She has been a world champion since she was young. She's also been second in the Giro, so I know what she's capable of and I think she has a good chance to score on the road."

Bogaerts said that while she is not sure how Ferran-Prevot will fare on the Swiss course against the likes of Demi Vollering (Netherlands) and Lotte Kopecky (Belgium), given her time away from the discipline, there is no undue pressure on her to deliver results. She assured that there was not.

“It's hard to say, but it depends on the outcome of the race. The Dutch women always have a strong team, but I think the French team is also strong in the climbs, with Juliette Laboux.

“But she doesn't have to go with any particular ambition, because if she finishes the season with the MTB World Championships, it will take her a little while to fill the gap.

The French superstar is one of three former road racing world champions to line up at the start, along with defending rainbow jersey riders Kopecký and Marianne Vos (Netherlands).

Top WorldTour riders Lovace, Evita Mujic, Sedrine Kervaor, Marion Bunel, Léa Culinier, and Jade Ville will be the first French elite women's road race world title winners since Ferrand-Prevot in 2014 will make up the remainder of the French national team, which is aiming to become the first French team to win the world title since Ferrand-Prévot in 2014.

Bogaerts also revealed that Ferrand-Prevot had made small changes to its training in preparation for the change in discipline.

“I focused a little bit on the transition. For example, she's already wearing road shoes. 'I want to finish this season in the best way possible, as a stepping stone to next year. The team fully supports that, and I think we're on the record,” she laughed.

“Even people who leave the team get full support until the last day, like Tao (Geoghegan Hart) last year. We supported him 100 percent knowing he was going to another team.

For Bogarts, who is also Tom Pidcock's long-term coach, working with Ferran-Prevot, a 12-time world champion across the disciplines, was a career highlight.

“She is an amazing athlete and working with Pauline was a great experience for me. She has an incredible work ethic, is super professional, is a super nice person, and I respect and appreciate her very much.”

“For me, working with an athlete was one of the better experiences. She had already accomplished a lot before working with me. But when she started working with me, she had one major goal, and that was to win the Olympics. If you look at how she finished the race, she won by almost three minutes.

“I was a small part of that, but I think she sacrificed a lot and also put in a lot of hard work and showed our team what she could do.”

Although it was not his decision, Bogaerts could not hide his disappointment that Ineos had not formed a women's team when asked about ending his collaboration with the Frenchwoman.

“Of course, it is not my decision what the team should do, but if you have a good relationship with the riders, it is natural to want to keep it going longer,” Bogaerts said. [If we had a [women's] team, it probably would have been easier to go down that road and try to achieve other goals.

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