Pauline Ferrand-Prévot likely to miss Gravel World Championships through Covid

Ineos Grenadiers’ off-road star Pauline Ferrand-Prévot’s chances of defending her gravel world title look to be fading away with the Frenchwoman contracting Covid just eight days before the event.

Ferrand-Prévot, who is also the mountain biking cross-country Olympic and short track world champion, confirmed on Instagram on Friday morning that she had tested positive, forcing her out of this weekend’s European Gravel Championships, and making a start at Worlds unlikely.

With the European and World Gravel Championships clashing with the final two rounds of the UCI Mountain Bike World Series in North America, Ferrand-Prévot had opted to race gravel instead of mountain bike in the final weeks of the season and attempt to defend her rainbow jersey in Veneto.

However, that is now looking increasingly unlikely, with the Ineos Grenadiers rider reporting a long period of difficulty since her last win at the Les Gets World Cup.

“Since Les Gets nothing is going really in the right direction,” she wrote in an Instagram post. “I managed to push myself every time to give my best and got a good result, but last week during [the Paris Olympics mountain bike] Test Event I started to feel tired again and no energy.

“Two days ago I started to feel sick, and now it seems the Covid hit me again. The plan was to compete this weekend at the Europeans Gravel but this will not happen. Good luck to everyone.”

Ferrand-Prévot won the inaugural UCI Gravel World Championships in 2022, putting on a dominant solo display ahead of the gravel specialists, earning herself one of four rainbow jerseys she took home last year - the others coming in short track, cross-country Olympic and marathon mountain biking.

The 31-year-old has won world titles in road, cyclo-cross and mountain biking during her career, with gravel being the latest string to her bow. Despite focusing on mountain biking for most of the season, she was due to make a return to gravel at the inaugural UEC European Championships, which take place in Belgium on Sunday.

Ferrand-Prévot’s Ineos Grenadiers off-road counterpart Tom Pidcock opted to see out the mountain bike season and is in action this weekend at the Snowshoe World Cup.