Pauline Ferrand Prevot (Liv Pro XC Team) has started two races in the 2014 UCI XCO series and has won them both. She not only won them, she crushed them, winning in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic by 2:50 over Catharine Pendrel (Luna Pro Team) and in Albstadt, Germany by 2:59 over Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesjå (Multivan Merida Biking Team). To say she has dominated the two races would be an understatement, taking early leads in both and never looking back, leaving all the other women to fight it out for 2nd place or pray for a mechanical.
Also, take note, that arguably the greatest female racer ever– Marianne Vos (coincidentally Ferrand Prevot’s Rabo Liv Women’s Cycling teammate on the road) has also taken to XCO dirt in the past with less success than Ferrand Prevot. While Vos won both the Sea Otter’s short track* and XC races in April 2014, her XCO series results in 2013 were not nearly as impressive as those that of Pauline Ferrand Prevot, finishing 11th in Albstadt and 23rd in Vallnord (of course it was probably hard for Vos to focus on her mountain bike racing while racking up sixteen various 1st place road and cross victories, including a Dutch National Road Championship and Cross and Road World Championship wins… Christ!).
Ferrand Prevot is no stranger to the race scene, competing mostly on the road (currently for the Rabo Liv Women Cycling Team). she won La Flèche Wallonne Féminine in April and the French National Time Trial Championship in 2013. Luckily for the rest of the Women in the XCO series, Ferrand Prevot will be giving them a break and returning to the road until the XCO World Championship in Hafjell, Norway in September.
I wouldn’t say Pauline Ferrand Prevot’s dominance has made for great racing, but it’s been pretty freaking impressive to watch. Plus she’s the only racer I know that sports a tooth stud.
Top photo: UCI Facebook/Michal Cerveny Photography
Video: Red Bull TV, Music: Love In a Trashcan (Dreadnoughts Remix) by The Raveonettes
Middle photo: giant-bicycles.com
Bottom photo: cyclephotos.co.uk
*By the way, are American XC promoters the only ones featuring short track rather then eliminator racing now ?