Defending champion Pauline Ferrand-Prevot abandons Tour de France Femmes with illness

Defending champion Pauline Ferrand-Prevot has withdrawn from the Tour de France Femmes with illness.

The 34-year-old Team Visma-Lease a Bike rider has not started the penultimate stage from Sisteron to Nice and was not present at her team’s presentation.

Ferrand-Prevot finished Friday’s stage more than ten minutes later than winner Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney.

She leaves the Tour 14:37 behind the yellow-jersey wearer, after “not feeling well this morning”, her team announced as their riders signed on in Sisteron.

“In consultation with the medical staff, it has been decided that she will not start today. We wish Pauline a speedy recovery!” the statement read on Saturday.

Ferrand-Prevot won last year’s Tour with a long-range solo effort on the queen stage’s Col de la Madeleine. After winning the final stage too, she finished 3:42 above Demi Vollering.

This year, however, she has been unable to replicate the same form. On the first decisive day for the general classification, the Frenchwoman finished 19th, 2:35 behind winner Vollering.

After deficits too in the individual time-trial, this put her five minutes behind in the GC, causing her to declare her title defence “over.”

Ferrand-Prevot is yet to win this year, and finished 35th in the Vuelta a España Femenina.