Pauline Ferrand-Prévot finished a stellar cyclo-cross on a bitter note yesterday when she placed 24th in the Cyclo-cross World Championship in Valkenburg, Netherlands. The race was won by Sanne Cant (Belgium) defending her rainbow jersey from 2017, with Katie Compton (USA) and Lucinda Brand (Netherlands) taking the remaining podium places.

Ferrand-Prévot suffered the effects from a heavy crash in last weekend’s final World Cup that disrupted the 25-year old’s final preparations.

“With the crash of last week I had a really difficult week. It wasn’t possible to train like I wanted and in the end I haven’t recovered completely from the crash. I really have a lot of pain in my ribs and you can’t do a good performance at world championships if you’re not at 100%,” said Ferrand-Prévot.

Starting near the back of the grid Ferrand-Prévot faced a tough challenge to make it through the 41–rider field in muddy and freezing conditions. The leading riders opened gaps of 15 seconds and after the first lap Ferrand-Prévot was more than 40 seconds behind the leading riders.

Cant and Compton went on to fight for the rainbow jersey in the final two laps, with the Belgium getting the upper hand only in the final five minutes of racing.

After the race it was obvious Ferrand-Prévot was disappointed.

“I’m disappointed because I did a really good cyclo-cross season until now. The world championships became a big goal. At the end, in the last week before the race everything goes away with one crash. I will now take some time to recovery, do some more tests, and then I will look forward to bringing my form to the road and MTB seasons.”

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