The Rémoise won, on August 3, the Tour de France female, signing resounding success, a year after its coronation in mountain biking during the Paris Olympic Games.
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot marked female cycling by winning, last Sunday, August 3, the Tour de France Femini. The end of 36 years of scarcity for tricolor female cycling, Jeannie Longo being the last Frenchwoman to have registered her name in the list of the event in 1989. But behind the victory of the Rémoise, her spectacular weight loss fueled the controversy.
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VIDEO. Pauline Ferrand-Prévot: “I eat what I want to eat!” The champion of the Tour de France responds dryly to criticism on her weight
“A new dangerous standard”
Among the criticisms that emerge, that of Marlen Reusser, Swiss runner and doctor of medicine. “We secretly hoped that she did not win” she confides to our colleagues from Tages-Anzeiger. For her, the targeted diet of “PFP” creates an unprecedented standard, increasing the pressure on all its competitors. “When someone succeeds at this point, it challenges everyone,” she explains.
The risks of Red-S syndrome
If Reusser admires the performance of Ferrand-Prévot, she is concerned about health: rapid weight loss can cause RED-S syndrome (relative energy deficit in sport), with risk of depression, injuries, illnesses and absence of menstruation. “When she proudly exhibits a jersey that has become too large, the message can be dangerous for young cyclists,” she said.
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Lower your weight, ultimate solution?
Half Vollering, second in the round, recalls that “reducing your weight is not the ultimate solution” and that your body must be respected. Ferrand-Prévot, she claims to have lost these pounds only for the race and have not weighed himself since the end of the Tour.
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Victory remains historic, but poses at the center of the debate the question of the balance between sports and health performance. How to celebrate the feat without glorifying potentially harmful practices? Relying insists on education and caution in the face of these methods of physical preparation.
