MULTIPLE world champion Pauline Ferrand-Prevot has become the first woman to sign for Ineos Grenadiers, agreeing a two-year deal to be part of the team’s off-road roster as she targets mountain bike gold at the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

The 30-year-old is coming off a season in which she won the short track, cross-country and marathon at the mountain bike World Championships as well as the inaugural UCI Gravel World Championships.

Ferrand-Prevot was also road world champion in 2014 but has joined the Grenadiers, who do not have a women’s road team, purely as an off-road rider.

The Grenadiers’ off-road team has been largely built around men’s Olympic mountain-bike champion Tom Pidcock, who rides in both mountain bike and cyclocross for the team. Ben Tulett, another Ineos road rider, also competes in cyclocross.

Pidcock, 23, has previously cited Ferrand-Prevot as an inspiration as he wants to become the first man to emulate her achievement of simultaneously holding the road, cyclocross and mountain bike world titles, as she did in 2015.

Ineos deputy team principal Rod Ellingworth said: “Pauline is a unique talent. Her palmares speaks for itself, especially after just winning four world titles in the space of two months.”

The team is backed by Jim Ratcliffe, who runs the Ineos chemicals group. The avid sports-washer, named in 2018 as the richest person in Britain, moved to Monaco in 2020 to save himself £4 billion in tax.