JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Imagine being a French woman and winning the Olympic gold medal in mountain biking last summer in Paris, then saying, you know what? I'm going to switch to road cycling to win the next women's Tour de France. Well, the cyclist Pauline Ferrand-Prevot just pulled off that incredible feat this weekend, and here to recap it for us is Abby Mickey. She's a former professional cyclist and podcast host for the cycling news site Escape Collective. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
ABBY MICKEY: Hi. Thank you so much for having me.
SUMMERS: OK, this was a pretty incredible feat over the weekend. Tell us a little bit about Pauline Ferrand-Prevot. Was she expected to be this good?
MICKEY: Yeah. I mean, she's one of the best cyclists of all time. She's won the cyclo-cross, mountain bike and road world championship titles in the same year, when she was only 23. And she took some time off of the road bike to pursue mountain biking, where she became multitime world champion and as, you said, won the gold medal at the Paris Olympics. But she always dreamed of winning the Tour de France. The problem was there was no Tour de France for women for quite some time. Right after she won the gold medal at the Olympic Games, she announced that she would be coming back to road specifically to win the Tour de France. And she gave herself a three-year window, but she only needed one year.
SUMMERS: Wow, that's incredible. What other storylines are going to be sticking with you from this year's tour?
MICKEY: Wow. One of the biggest ones was just the sheer size of the crowds. This year, there were thousands of fans, not only in the towns where the stages start and finish, but also along the route. On all of the climbs, there were fans lining the roads. A lot of them were there for Pauline. She's a huge person in France, having won the gold medal in Paris. So to also see her win the race was pretty incredible for a lot of the French people.
There's also been a huge boom in women's cycling in terms of professionalism. The governing body of cycling set a minimum salary a couple years ago, which has meant that teams have professionalized. And that's been a really big thing for cycling in terms of the way that women train, and it has elevated the sport to the point where it's almost unfathomable what they're able to do on a bike.
SUMMERS: So some people might be surprised to learn that there is a women's Tour de France in part because it is only the fourth edition in the modern era. So I wonder, has it become the center of the women's calendar the same way as the men's race?
MICKEY: It's definitely getting there. I mean, when I raced and I would tell people I'm a professional cyclist, the very first thing they would ask is, oh, you must race the Tour de France, which when I was racing, it didn't exist. So the fact that there is a women's race now and that it's getting as much attention as it is means that it's quickly becoming the fixture of the women's cycling calendar, which allows riders like Pauline to target the race in such a way that she did this year.
SUMMERS: I have to ask just on a personal note, what was it like for you as a former pro who raced before there was the modern women's Tour de France to watch women like Pauline and others getting this opportunity?
MICKEY: I would be lying if I told you that it didn't hurt a little bit because I would absolutely love to be out there racing my bike with them. But it's also just incredible to watch from the perspective of a mother now. I have two daughters, and for me to be able to show them this race and bring them to the race is really incredible. And it's helping elevate the sport where I - if you told me five years ago that I would be on NPR talking about the women's Tour de France, I would not have believed you.
SUMMERS: We've been talking with Abby Mickey, former professional cyclist and podcast host at Escape Collective. Abby, thanks so much.
MICKEY: Thank you.
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