Maeva Squiban was the great discovery of the Tour de France Femmes, the young French athlete succeeded for two consecutive days, revealing her talent to the world and automatically becoming one of the most anticipated athletes for the next season. It was a truly special result that surprised everyone, especially herself, winning a stage in her home race was just a big dream she had started cultivating since she was a young girl when, precisely on Christmas Day, she encountered cycling.

As a child, she had always played handball, a sport she enjoyed and wanted to continue, but when she was 14, her parents gave her a pink mountain bike to go out with friends and everything changed. Her schoolmates were racing in a small local team, and she started doing some rides and training just to spend time with them, ending up enjoying herself and setting aside handball to make room for cycling. "I started for fun and simply because I wanted to be with my friends, I had a brand new bike and wanted to try it out. I started with mountain bike and cyclocross, I only came to road cycling later, some of my friends stopped while I wanted to continue, I had fallen in love with this sport," Maeva tells tuttobiciweb. The rest of the story is more well-known, results started coming, she moved up categories and at eighteen she entered the French national selection, from 2021 to 2023 she played for Stade Rochelais Charente Maritime, a team where she had to pay for everything, but which gave her the opportunity to become a true athlete while allowing her time to graduate in sports management. In 2024 she joined the Arkéa B&B hotel team, won her first race, but above all finished second in a Tour de France stage, attracting the attention of UAE ADQ team, which didn't hesitate to sign her.

In the Emirates team, Maeva was supported by more experienced athletes, integrated well, participated in high-level races, yet something always seemed not quite right. "At the beginning of the year, I needed time to adjust, I was the only French person and struggled with English. In the first races, I was always sick and when I finally found my form, a disaster happened. In May, a car hit me while I was training, I fell and had several fractures. I had to stop for about two months, but while recovering, my mind was focused on returning in time to participate in the Tour. I couldn't miss it," Maeva explains, who after that bad accident found the entire team supporting her; certainly Elisa Longo Borghini's Giro victory gave the group a significant boost, which then arrived in France with a very strong objective. The more experienced athletes in the group became her reference point, she asked for advice, learned to move better in the group, put together all these new learnings to try to become a better athlete.

Maeva had always dreamed of winning a Tour stage, but not even she would have expected to succeed for two consecutive days with spectacular actions. The French press's reaction was one of total euphoria, which then united with Pauline Ferrand Prevot's final success. And so the young UAE ADQ team athlete found herself at the center of attention. There were journalists asking for interviews, fans, curious onlookers, more and more people started recognizing her, risking overwhelming that moment of joy she was still realizing. "The first Tour victory was unexpected, but I admit I believed in it so much, I worked hard for that goal, I knew that if the opportunity came, I had to seize it. The next day, everything was very surreal, it felt like a replay and I couldn't understand if I was dreaming or if it had really happened. It took me some time to realize everything, back home I rewatched those two stages many times and it was beautiful, just like the warmth of all the people around me. Honestly, nothing has changed in my life, I still do the same training as before, but now people stop me on the street to congratulate me, some people even waited for me at the airport to ask for photos and autographs, I wasn't used to that at all. Suddenly newspapers were interested in me, constantly requesting interviews, and everyone wanted me to tell what happened at the Tour. It was a situation I couldn't manage well, but fortunately our press officer Giorgio Torre helped me a lot, his work was truly precious because he helped me handle everything while staying true to myself."

Perfect for undulating races and long-distance attacks, Maeva is now considered one of the promising young talents in French cycling, but now that she has realized her dream, one question comes automatically: what will the next one be? "When I started cycling, my dream was always to win a Tour de France stage. I hoped so much, but it seemed impossible to the point that I thought if it ever happened, I could be satisfied and even retire. But now that I've achieved it, I want to do something more. I struggle to explain it, but winning a Tour stage is still my dream," Maeva says laughing, who these days, in training camp with her team, is outlining her program for 2026. She doesn't have a debut date yet, but she has a precise objective: to return to the Tour to win another stage.