Defending champion Pauline Ferrand-Prevot has withdrawn from the Tour de France Femmes with illness.The 34-year-old Team Visma-Lease a Bike rider has not started the penultimate stage from Sisteron to Nice and was not present at her team’s presentation.Ferrand-Prevot finished Friday’s stage more than ten minutes later than winner Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney.She leaves the Tour 14:37 behind the yellow-jersey wearer, after “not feeling well this morning”, her team announced as their riders signed on in Sisteron.“In consultation with the medical staff, it has been decided that she will not start today. We wish Pauline a speedy recovery!” the statement read on Saturday.Ferrand-Prevot won last year’s Tour with a long-range solo effort on the queen stage’s Col de la Madeleine. After winning the final stage too, she finished 3:42 above Demi Vollering.This year, however, she has been unable to replicate the same form. On the first decisive day for the general classification, the Frenchwoman finished 19th, 2:35 behind winner Vollering.After deficits too in the individual time-trial, this put her five minutes behind in the GC, causing her to declare her title defence “over.”Ferrand-Prevot is yet to win this year, and finished 35th in the Vuelta a España Femenina.An underwhelming Tour for Ferrand-Prevot – and VismaFerrand-Prevot’s Tour never really got started, so it is disappointing to see her go.She shipped time in the individual time-trial, but that has never been a particular speciality. The hope of seeing her once again split the peloton on home roads was still there.This was squashed by stage 5, however. Again, maybe not a stage completely suited to her as it demanded more power, a five-minute deficit was nearly insurmountable given the form of her rivals.Ventoux was once last chance for vindication, but Ferrand-Prevot was dropped early on in the climb and the judgement was final — she was not going to have an imprint on this race at all.In fact, neither have many of her team-mates. Whether it’s because they’ve been totally focussed on their leader Ferrand-Prevot or not, there hasn’t been a strong Visma presence in GC battles or breakaways. Marianne Vos finished third in the stage 2 sprint but was eight seconds down on Lorena Wiebes the day before.For a team of Visma’s stature, it feels something has gone very wrong.