Paris (AFP)

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, who returns to the mountain bike podium after her health problems, takes on the world title on Saturday at the Quebec circuit of Mont Sainte-Anne, four years after winning gold in the Worlds of the discipline .

A sign ? The 27-year-old Champenoise won bronze on Wednesday in the mixed relay event played by the national team. Operated in January from an iliac endofibrosis, a pain that, she says, ruined her previous three seasons, she won a World Cup round in Italy in early August. For the first time since ... 2015.

"I feel normal again," said the Frenchwoman at the time of competing at Mont Sainte-Anne, a traditional stage of the World Cup that has already hosted the MTB Worlds twice (1998 and 2010).

In Canada, she will focus on the last two world champions, Switzerland's Jolanta Neff (2017) and American Kate Courtney (2018), at the top of the overall World Cup standings. Sweden's Jenny Rissveds, the Olympic champion in Rio, returns to the top of the bill after a cut due to a depression.

In the men's race, the absence of the Dutch prodigy Mathias van der Poel, who favors the world championships scheduled for the end of September in Yorkshire (he will make the opposite choice next year at the Tokyo Olympics), clears the way for specialists Swiss. First, the reference Nino Schurter (33), leading the overall standings of the World Cup but beaten in the last two rounds.

Seven times title, Schurter would achieve in case of new victory a new pass. So far, he shares with Julien Absalon, the companion of Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, the record of four consecutive world titles.

While the Swiss have often shone at Mont Sainte-Anne (four World Cup successes), he also kept a bad memory of the 2010 World Cup. He had lost any chance of medal because of two mechanical troubles (4th).

The French, five of which are among the top ten in the World Cup (Sarrou 6th, Marotte 7th, Carod 8th, Tempier 9th, Koretzky 10th), aspire to a podium that escapes them since the third place of Absalon in 2016.

The French elite selection:

Messrs: Titouan Carod (BMC), Thomas Griot (Massi), Victor Koretzky (KMC), Maxime Marotte (Cannondale), Jordan Sarrou (Absolute), Stéphane Tempier (Bianchi)

Women: Julie Bresset (BMC), Pauline Ferrand-Prevot (Canyon), Lucie Urruty (Scott)

© 2019 AFP