Lizzie Deignan is to join the Great Britain Cycling Team as a sports director, a year after she retired from the pro ranks.

The 37-year-old, world champion in 2015, will work with men’s and women’s road cycling lead, Matt Brammeier, in pursuit of silverware for Great Britain’s road riders at major events en route to the 2028 Olympics in LA.

Deignan retired last year after a career which saw her win the Worlds, the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix Femmes, La Course by Le Tour de France, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and more. The new DS role is just one of the new hats she has put on in 2026, with Deignan also launching a coaching service, and becoming race organiser for the Otley Cycle Races.

"I’m excited about the opportunity to work with a strong and talented group of riders; I believe we’re one of the strongest road nations in the world," Deignan said. "It’s been over 10 years since my world title so it’s time for us to step into our potential and deliver more rainbow jerseys.

"It’s always a proud moment to represent your country - my aim is to help each rider who does that achieve their maximum performance with the best possible support."

"Bringing Lizzie into the team is a real coup," Brammeier said. "Having only recently retired from the bunch, she has so much insight and knowledge into both GB’s riders and the opposition. She also understands how we work as a team first-hand and can support and advise on how to get the best out of our riders on race day.

"Beyond that, Lizzie is a true legend of the sport and has directly inspired some of our future stars to want to follow in her footsteps, so to be working alongside her will be a real joy for them. Most importantly, she is just incredibly passionate about the sport and seeing Great Britain achieve success at the highest level and that shines through above everything."

Lizzie Deignan has launched a coaching service alongside her husband Philip, offering a "personal and bespoke" plan for each rider.

Deignan Performance will provide athletes at every level with world-class cycling coaching in order to unlock their potential, according to the website.

Lizzie Deignan retired in 2025 after a career which saw her win the UCI World Championships road race, the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix Femmes, La Course by Le Tour de France, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and more. Her husband, Philip, retired at the end of 2018 after a career as largely a climbing domestique.

In a post on Instagram, Lizzie Deignan wrote: "After coaching myself to a World title and [an] Olympic medal I took a break to have our daughter Orla. In that time I realised I needed to share the load, thats when I started working with Philip. Together we won the WorldTour, two Monuments and, most importantly, happiness and balance at the top of my game.

"Eyeru Tesfoam approached me in 2024 seeking guidance and support for her bid to compete in Paris for the Refugee Olympic Team. Being on the start line together is one of my fondest Olympic memories and was the start of my desire to coach.

"Joining forces with Philip to create Deignan Performance was the obvious next step. We will work together to deliver every rider we coach a personal and bespoke experience…

"A beginner? A professional? A new mum navigating your return to fitness? Or a rider looking to create new goals and find out your true potential? We would love to hear from you!"

Plans cost £120 a month for a developing rider, and £160 for adults. Included in the latter is an initial consultation, a premium TrainingPeaks account, filing analysis every other day, ongoing mentorship, tactical and fuelling strategy support, open communication, test analysis and zone setting, and dynamic plan adjustments.

According to the site: "We offer one comprehensive coaching package because we believe every athlete deserves our absolute best. Whether you're a promising young rider, an enthusiastic amateur pursuing personal goals, or a professional athlete competing at the highest level, you'll receive the same level of attention, expertise, and commitment that has contributed to World Championship victories and Grand Tour success.

​"At Deignan Performance, we don't believe in tiered service levels. Every athlete on our program receives access to the full breadth of our knowledge, experience, and dedication. We're excited to work with you, regardless of where you are in your cycling journey."

Those interested are invited to visit www.deignanperformance.com.

“It would’ve been a good route for Lizzie [Deignan],” says Marion Rousse, sitting in the basement room of Leeds City Museum, where she has just announced the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift will start in Yorkshire in 2027.

Three seats to the race director's right, Deignan begins to laugh. “Well, yeah,” the Brit says. “But they did it too late.”

Although Deignan, now retired and pregnant with her third child, will not be on the start line of the race, she's still "incredibly proud and grateful" that it's coming to the UK.

“I’m now a mother," she told the media, including Cycling Weekly. “I will have two daughters by the time the race rolls around, and to be able to experience the magic of the Tour de France with them, but to see ponytails coming out the back of the helmets, is going to be brilliant.”

It's a half-an-hour drive from the former world champion's birthplace of Otley to the Tour de France Femmes 2027 Grand Départ in Leeds. She'll make the trip as a fan next summer, as she did when the men’s Tour came to town in 2014.

“I was one of the best riders in the world,” Deignan said, “but incredibly jealous of my male colleagues and the opportunities they had to race at home in the Tour de France, and it makes me incredibly proud and grateful that now the women of the UK will have the chance to race here.”

From Leeds, the women's peloton will head across the Pennines to Manchester for an expected sprint finish on day one. They will then climb Snake Pass, through the Peak District, to Sheffield the following day, before a still-to-be-revealed third stage in London, and a transfer to France.

Addressing the media, Rousse spoke of the “fervour” of the British fans. She watched them on her TV, she recalled, when the men’s race started in Leeds in 2014, and expects them to turn up in overwhelming numbers again in July next year.

“I will be jealous,” said Deignan, asked how she'll feel to be absent from the peloton. “I’d be lying if I said otherwise. But I’m on the other side now, and I will get to appreciate the magic as a fan, which I’ve never got to be able to do before, so I’m looking forward to that.

“I just think it’s going to be such a moment for the community to come together. British fans are brilliant. There’s no downside to this. It’s all positive. I’m really excited just to be here in July and to feel it all.”

The UK will host six Tour de France stages next year, split equally between the men’s and women’s races, it was announced on Thursday.

On 2 July, the men will leave Edinburgh, via stage finishes in Carlisle, Liverpool and Cardiff. The race’s travelling circus will then return at the end of the month, 30 July, to welcome the women in Leeds.

“The amount of children that come up to me and say, ‘I was watching you in London 2012. I remember you winning that medal’,” Deignan said. “The amount of people that talk to me about their memories of me winning races is incredible, and it can be so impactful to people. You can’t be what you can’t see, so it’s great that little girls and boys both get to see the potential of what they could possibly be.”

Later on Thursday evening, Deignan’s voice rang out from a loudspeaker in Leeds’s Millenium Square, where a lights display beamed onto the city hall. It included a five-minute video, with archive reels from both the men’s and women’s races, and the names of the UK’s host towns and cities for 2027. At the end, both races’ logos shone side by side. A crowd of around 150 people in suits rippled in applause.

Come 30 July 2027, the same spot will count tens of thousands of people – adults and children, dressed in yellow and polka dots. The countdown is on. “We’re ready,” Deignan’s voice filled the square. “Are you?”

Lizzie Deignan, former world champion and pioneer of women's professional cycling, has announced her immediate retirement from the sport.

The decision was made as the 36-year-old is pregnant with her third child, due in February 2026. Deignan was due to finish her career at the end of this season, but has now brought her retirement forward.

Over 19 seasons as a pro, the Brit recorded 43 wins, including the UCI Road World Championships, Paris-Roubaix Femmes, the Tour of Flanders, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Strade Bianche. Her legacy also counts her as one of the first female professional cyclists to have a child and return to the highest level.

“Often people say, ‘Retire at the top.’ But I have no ego or necessity to retire at the top,” said Deignan.

The Lidl-Trek rider's last victory came at the inaugural Paris-Roubaix Femmes in 2021, where she attacked solo with more than 80km remaining. In recent years, she has taken on a domestique role within her team.

“I’m really happy to go full circle and to have ended my career as somebody that helps other people win bike races again,” she said.

After joining her first UCI team in 2007, Deignan went on to become the number one ranked cyclist in the world.

She took time out of racing in 2018 to give birth to her daughter, Orla, and did the same in 2020, when she and her husband Philip welcomed their second child, a son named Shea.

“I have this life outside of cycling that gives me so much fulfilment and so much love,” Deignan said.

In a press release announcing her retirement, the Brit’s Lidl-Trek team described her as a “consummate leader and mentor”, who has “lead the charge for more exposure on women’s cycling and better compensation for her colleagues”.

Deignan’s last race was the Copenhagen Sprint in June, where she placed 89th. Before that, she rode the Tour of Britain Women, a race she won twice during her career.

“It feels like it’s come full circle. Obviously I started off racing here in the UK, so it’s nice to get one final race here,” she told Cycling Weekly at the Tour of Britain.

Deignan went on to say that professional women’s cycling is “night and day different” today to when she first started.

“I feel like I’ve carried the torch for quite a long time now, and it’s really cool that there is now a group of women ready to take over,” she said.

Deignan's palmarès also counts a silver medal in the road race at the 2012 Olympics, a Commonwealth Games gold medal, and four British national road race titles.

“Time to retire,” Lizzie Deignan responds when it’s pointed out to her that no rider has raced the Tour of Britain Women more times than she has. Of the ten editions of the race, she has competed in eight and won two. However, this year, it was one final lap for the rider who has spearheaded women’s cycling in the UK for the past decade, as she prepares to retire at the end of this season.

The 36-year-old has been competing in the women’s elite peloton since 2007 and was proud to race on British soil one final time, especially as the Tour of Britain Women kicked off at home in Yorkshire before winding its way north to a finish in Glasgow on Sunday.

“It feels like it's come full circle. Obviously I started off racing here in the UK, so it's nice to get one final race here,” Deignan told Cycling Weekly at the start of stage three in Kelso.

The Brit was a constant feature during the four stages, working on the front for her Lidl-Trek team and claiming the combativity award on stage three.

After the finish in Glasgow, she broke down in tears, overcome with emotion on completing her final Tour of Britain Women.

Deignan announced her retirement last November, before the 2025 season got underway. She is now on a year-long lap of honour after a hugely successful career which has included World Championship and Paris-Roubaix Femmes titles, as well as an Olympic silver medal from London 2012.

This season, her role has been centred on supporting her team’s leaders and soaking up every enjoyable moment she can.

“It's been really nice, to be honest. Knowing that every race that I do is my last time, even on bad days I force myself to enjoy it because I won't get to do this again. I'm looking at the positives every race I do and just enjoying it," she said.

Women’s cycling is almost unrecognisable from how it was when Deignan entered the peloton almost two decades ago. The sport is more professional, more competitive, and the women’s scene in the UK is bigger than ever.

Deignan is pleased to be passing on the baton at a time when there are so many strong young British talents emerging, including the likes of Cat Ferguson, who, at only 19 years old, placed a close second overall at the Tour of Britain.

“It's night and day different,” Deignan said in comparing the two eras. “The women's scene is really strong in the UK, we've got quite a few domestic teams.

"Obviously the next generation of women coming through, Cat, Imogen [Wolff], Carys [Lloyd], Anna [Henderson], Pfeiffer [Georgi], Zoe [Bäckstedt] - the list is endless. That is totally different to when I was coming through.

"I feel like I've carried the torch for quite a long time now, and it's really cool that there is now a group of women ready to take over.”

Double junior world champion Cat Ferguson is set to make her debut at the Tour of Britain Women in June, British Cycling announced on Tuesday.

Ferguson, who hails from North Yorkshire, will lead Spanish WorldTour team Movistar in the four-day stage race which will take in her home county before heading north and into Scotland. The 19-year-old recently took her first win of the season at a rain-soaked Navarra Classic.

Alongside Ferguson, British Cycling revealed that Visma-Lease a Bike's rising star Imogen Wolff is also set to race. Yorkshire-born Wolff won a bronze medal in the junior time trial at last year's World Championships, and rode for the same British amateur team as the Movistar rider, Shibden Apex RT.

Wolff won a stage and the youth classification in her first race of the season, the Vuelta a Extremadura, and was recently praised by Marianne Vos for her role in the Dutch veteran’s recent stage win at La Vuelta Femenina.

Meanwhile, British Cycling also confirmed that Lidl-Trek's Lizzie Deignan will line up for one final outing at her home race before her retirement later this year. Deignan won the event’s predecessor, the Women’s Tour, on two previous occasions and took home the mountains jersey in last year’s race.

"I'm always happy to race the Tour of Britain Women," Deignan said. "I have such special memories from this race and over my career I have had a lot of success here. It's always a different feeling racing in front of home crowds so I hope we see lots of fans out cheering for the women's peloton over all four days.

"This will be my final Tour of Britain so it will be bittersweet but I am going to be surrounded by some incredible women as part of our Lidl-Trek team so I'm confident we can make it a good week and we will be motivated to achieve some nice results together."

Deignan will be joined by her Lidl-Trek teammate Anna Henderson who finished second last year. The duo raced together as part of the Great Britain Cycling Team in the 2024 edition of the race.

"I am really looking forward to racing the Tour of Britain Women again this year," Henderson said. "It's always special to race on home soil, and as a British rider, we don't have so many opportunities so I will be looking to make the most of this moment and hopefully, we will see lots of enthusiastic British cycling fans out on the roads to support us."

Sisters Zoe and Elynor Bäckstedt are also set to race for Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto and UAE Team ADQ respectively. Having finished 15th in Paris-Roubaix Femmes during the spring, Zoe will be making her debut at the race while Elynor will be taking part for a third time.

Alongside the raft of high profile British riders, Olympic road race champion Kristen Faulkner (EF Education-Oatly) is also set to race. The Tour of Britain Women gets underway in Dalby Forest on 5 June.

Lizzie Deignan will retire at the end of 2025, it was announced on Friday afternoon.

The Lidl-Trek rider, a former world and British national champion, and winner of Paris-Roubaix Femmes, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the Tour of Flanders, will race on for one more season with her current team.

In a clip posted to social media, the 35-year-old said that she no longer wanted to say goodbye to her children, as happens often with a life on the road.

"I’m going to retire next year, at the end of 2025," she said in the video posted by Lidl-Trek. "Winning the rainbow jersey was up there with the best of them and I did it by myself. Looking back I think wow, who was that girl.

"Roubaix [Paris-Roubaix Femmes] was totally unexpected and also the reaction afterwards was bigger than I thought it would be," she continued. "It was a turning point in women’s cycling. It was special that I got to be the first person to cross the line. I remember winning the WorldTour during the pandemic when Orla was a year and a half old, and to be consistently the best rider in the world when I had a one and a half year old at home was a really impressive achievement.

"My kids are… I just don’t want to say goodbye to them anymore. [I have] no ego or necessity to retire at the top, I’m ready to go full circle and be someone who helps people win bike races again. If I can help the next champions of the sport, then I’m delighted to be a part of that."

"I feel really fortunate that I’m stepping away still very much in love with the sport," Deignan said in a press release from British Cycling. "I love cycling and all the things it’s given me and I certainly won’t be one of those people who never looks at a bike again, I really want to stay involved. Women’s cycling is on an upward trajectory and I’ve been a part of that. I feel I have some expertise in that area and I’d be crazy not to try and share that with the next generation."

Deignan started her career at the Global Racing Team in 2007, before moving to Boels-Dolmans in 2013, at which she enjoyed some of the biggest successes of her career, including the World Championships win in 2015, and then Strade Bianche, the Trofeo Alfredo Binda and the Tour of Flanders in 2016.

Deignan then moved to Lidl-Trek (then Trek-Segafredo) in 2019, with whom she won La Course by Le Tour de France and Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 2020, and then the Tour de Suisse and Paris-Roubaix Femmes in 2021. Another highlight was her silver medal at the 2012 Olympics, the first British medal of the London games.

The rider from Yorkshire was also a trailblazer for off the bike reasons, becoming a mum to two children, in 2018 and 2022, during her professional cycling career, and then returning to the peloton.

"Lizzie is one of Britain’s most decorated and influential cyclists and will be remembered for a boundary-pushing career of iconic cycling moments," Stephen Park, the GB Cycling Team's performance director, said. "Whether it’s representing her country at the highest level or performing at the forefront of the women’s pro peloton, Lizzie has done it all.  

 "With the Great Britain Cycling Team, we’ve seen her win iconic rainbow jerseys on both the road and track, as well as a sensational silver medal at the London Olympic Games and we will all be supporting her over the coming months, as she completes what will be her 18th season in the pro peloton."

Just 10 days before she animated the Paris Olympics road race, Lizzie Deignan had a "medical emergency" and spent a night in hospital, she revealed. 

The Brit finished 12th in the race, having been one of its key instigators in the leading group. Not once, but twice Deignan attacked on the Montmartre finishing circuit, hoping to set up a winning move for her Team GB teammate, Pfeiffer Georgi, who placed fifth. 

Speaking to the media beneath the Eiffel Tower, Deignan explained that she had had an "absolutely abysmal preparation" for the race.

"I got Covid during the Giro and raced by accident with it and really put myself in a hole. And then I was in hospital with a medical emergency 10 days ago, I spent the night in hospital. I'm alright, just about," she said. 

"It's been one of those build-ups where it's hard to come into without the evidence of the work. It's been an emotional rollercoaster. I'm ready to chill out."

Deignan was one of three British riders in a 10-strong group at the front of the Olympic road race, alongside Georgi and time trial silver medallist Anna Henderson. All three tried daring attacks, none of which stuck for longer than a few minutes. 

"From the outside it might have looked a bit odd," Deignan said, "but I thought, 'You know what, we've got three.' Maybe from the outside you try and keep the three for as long as you can, but I knew actually the best thing I could do was establish that breakaway, give Pfeiffer a free ride, and as soon as [Lotte] Kopecky jumped across, that's when I started attacking.

"They were complete suicide moves. I had no intention of riding away to a medal, because I was really struggling today with pain."

The race, in the end, was won by American Kristen Faulkner, who got a leap on a leading quartet with around 3km to go. Dutchwoman Marianne Vos earned second and Belgium's Lotte Kopecky came third in a three-up sprint for the podium, with Hungary’s Kata Blanka Vas missing out by a tyre's width. 

"Bike riding isn't straightforward. I think the strongest rider in the bike race won," Deignan said. "Faulkner is a phenomenal athlete, and she pulled it off, so chapeau to her. And of course, chapeau to Marianne, she is the GOAT [Greatest Of All Time] of our sport."

Deignan, who won a silver medal in the road race at the London Olympics in 2012, confirmed that she has signed another year's deal with her trade team, Lidl-Trek, for 2025. 

The Los Angeles Olympics in 2028, however, are "absolutely not" in her sights, she laughed. "There'll be no LA. Not on the bike anyway," the 35-year-old said. "I'll be on the sofa."

All eyes are firmly on the Paris Olympics which get underway this weekend, with events across four different types of cycling: BMX, road, mountain biking and track. 

Just because the Tour de France moved away from Paris this summer, it doesn’t mean that Parisians and the rest of the world will be forced to miss out on any elite level cycling action in the city, far from it. 

In the Tour’s stead, the Olympic road races are bound to bring barnstorming action to the streets of Paris as some of the best riders in the world do battle for an Olympic gold medal. Meanwhile the velodrome is also set to provide a stage for what promises to be some of the most exciting track action ever seen at the games. 

The Great Britain cycling team arrives in Paris with multiple cards to play as they go in search of medals across all of the sport’s various disciplines. Here we take a look at eight riders who we think will shine once competition gets underway. 

Tom Pidcock

Yorkshire-born Pidcock arrives in Paris in top mountain biking form. He abandoned the Tour de France due to suspected Covid, but will have made full use of the extra preparation time that provided going into the elite cross-country event at Elancourt Hill on Monday. 

As reigning Olympic and World Champion, Pidcock will be heavily marked by his rivals, but that won’t get in his way as he goes head to head with the likes of Switzerland’s Nino Schurter. 

Pidcock already has four victories on flat bars to his name since the turn of the year. Prior to starting the Tour de France, he won both the cross country and short track events at the Crans Montana round of the UCI World Cup. 

At the tail end of last year he also won the cross country event in Mont-Sainte-Anne in Canada after picking up the mtb rainbow bands in August. 

All of this combined makes Pidcock a hot tip for a medal on Monday, maybe even another gold. 

Emma Finucane

Emma Finucane enjoyed a breakthrough year in 2023 in which she was crowned the youngest match sprint world champion in almost 50 years. 

Prior to her summer triumph in Glasgow, she won every event she competed in at the national track championships in Newport, putting her well on her way to a spot on the Great Britain track team for the Paris games. 

After her success just down the road from her hometown of Carmarthen, the Welsh rider then won two silver medals at the European Championships, her first UCI gold medal at a Nations Cup event and she then saved the best until last, her maiden world title in Scotland. 

With all of those achievements combined, she has the possibility of becoming the first female cyclist to win three gold medals in a single Olympic games, a feat which would instantly make her a household name. 

Finucane’s races will be unmissable. Make sure you’re tuned in when the 21-year-old lines up in the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome for the first time. 

Stevie Williams

Despite a quiet time at the Tour de France, Williams thrived during the Spring, taking victory at La Flèche Wallonne which continued the excellent form that he showed in the early half of the season by winning the overall classification at the Tour down Under. 

The punchy circuit in Paris suits a rider of his qualities, and Williams will be licking his lips at the sight of some of the short, sharp climbs on the menu in the 276 kilometre race. Tom Pidcock is likely to be Great Britain’s main man in the road race, but Williams will provide an excellent foil should Pidcock display any signs of mountain biking fatigue. 

Race favourites Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel, and Pidcock, will be the ones to watch, but Williams could spring a surprise. 

Pfeiffer Georgi

British national champion for two consecutive years, Pfeiffer Georgi is one of many  aces hidden up GB's sleeve ahead of the women’s road race in Paris. 

Just like the men’s race, the course the elite women will face is seemingly tailor made for a rider with a skillset suited to the spring Classics, something which Georgi possesses in abundance. The 23-year-old finished on the podium at Paris-Roubaix Femmes in April before narrowly missing out on third place at the Amstel Gold race.  

Her climbing prowess displayed on the slopes of Saltburn Bank at the British national championships should mean that she should fly if given the opportunity to do so once the race gets underway. 

Georgi will be up against the likes of Lotte Kopecky and Demi Vollering in the scrap for the medals, but that shouldn't faze her too much.

Josh Tarling

World Championships bronze medallist, European champion, British national champion. There’s little that Welsh phenomenon Josh Tarling can’t do on a time trial bike it would seem. 

The 20-year-old was out taking time trial records on his home roads of west Wales when he was barely walking, and then progressed on to set records on his local club courses at an incredible rate. 

Tarling won nine out of the ten time trials he competed in prior to signing for Ineos Grenadiers, and hasn’t looked back since, taking the European title last summer and a second British national title just a handful of weeks ago. 

Tarling told Cycling Weekly that his ambitions are simple for his Olympic debut on Saturday, to "win" no matter what. Making his determination that clear will mean that Tarling is a force to be reckoned with this weekend when he rolls down an Olympic start ramp for the very first time.  

Lizzie Deignan

Lizzie Deignan is set to become the first female British cyclist to compete at four successive Olympic games when she takes to the road race course a week on Sunday. 

Deignan took a silver medal at London 2012, before competing in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, and at the rearranged games in Tokyo in 2021. Despite her status, it’s possible that the 35-year-old will not lead the GB team as they get set to attempt to get a rider onto the podium once more. 

Instead, Deignan may be called upon to support the likes of Georgi, Anna Henderson and Anna Morris. Nevertheless, should some of her younger teammates miss a select move that gets away, then you can bet on Deignan being present. 

The Lidl-Trek star made the eventual winning move in the road race last August at the World Championships and was right in contention for a medal all the way down to the wire in Glasgow.

She was forced to settle for sixth last August, but Deignan will certainly be a dark horse for the podium this time round. 

Dan Bigham

Three years ago, Dan Bigham was at the Olympics in Tokyo, but not as an athlete. 

The now 32-year-old was present in Japan working as an engineer and aerodynamicist for the Danish track team after finding himself at a crossroads in his track cycling career. Bigham was told he needed to choose between being an engineer or a rider, he chose the former at that point. 

Now Bigham finds himself back in a skinsuit and back in a velodrome as a rider in Paris. His journey in the sport has been remarkable in recent years, with two record breaking hour records set and other significant milestones passed. 

In 2022 Bigham became a world champion in the team pursuit and claimed two European gold medals. Alongside his teammates, he now stands on the cusp of helping Great Britain reclaim the men’s team pursuit title that they were forced to give up in Tokyo after controlling the event in the last three games. 

Bigham took a silver medal in the individual pursuit behind Filippo Ganna at last summer's combined worlds in Scotland, but this year could provide Bigham with his biggest moment yet. 

Anna Henderson

Fresh off the back of winning the female British national time trial title for a second time, Henderson will compete in both the road race and race against the clock for Great Britain. 

She had previously won the national champion’s jersey in 2021, and claimed it again once more in Redcar and Cleveland in mid-June. She has been working in the wind tunnel in the run-up to this Games, and should be in contention for the TT podium.

As well as winning her national time trial title, Henderson has proven herself to be in stellar form on the road, taking second overall at the Tour of Britain Women behind Kopecky ahead of going up against the Belgian once more in Paris. 

The 25-year-old from Hemel Hempstead could prove to be an excellent deputy to either Georgi or Deignan in the road race and could well get her own opportunity should the racing situation provide it. 

Either way, the Great Britain women’s team for the road race is packed full of quality. Anna Henderson’s presence takes it a step above once more. 

Lizzie Deignan was the greatest British female road cyclist of her generation. Her record stands up against some of the best racers of the last decade, although she has now retired. The Yorkshirewoman burst onto the scene in the late 2000s, and has been racing ever since. She started out on the track, but road racing was always her goal.

The 37-year-old returned to racing after spending the entirety of the 2022 season out in the run-up and aftermath of the birth of her second child, and had a lowkey 2023. 2025 was the last year that Deignan raced as a pro, as she is now expecting a third child.

Here are 21 things you didn't know about the Lidl-Trek rider.

1. Lizzie Deignan got into cycling aged 15, in 2004. She later said: “I started cycling when I was 15. I was talent spotted at school. I wasn’t a cyclist, I didn’t have a bike and basically British Cycling were talent spotting. They sent trailers into schools full of bikes and did crude testing on school fields."

2. She impressed the BC talent scouts by beating a boy, and was then given a bike. “I was just messing around and there was this lad who I’d known from primary school who taunted me into having a race with him and I couldn’t resist. I beat him obviously. I was given a bike, a coach and £500 of lottery funding.”

3. Deignan graduated from BC's Olympic Podium Programme, but never loved racing on the track. Despite this, she was a member of the winning team pursuit squad at the 2009 World Championships, alongside Joanna Rowsell Shand and Wendy Houvenaghel.

4. She was part of the five-woman team which helped Nicole Cooke to World Championship road race victory in Varese in 2008.

5. It was 2009 when Deignan really moved onto the road, finishing second at the British National Championships road race, and claiming her first trade team win at the Tour Cycliste Féminin International Ardèche in September that year. She won three more stages at the same race in 2010.

6. Her first National Championships win came in 2011, when she beat Cooke, Sharon Laws and Emma Pooley at Stamfordham. Deignan has four road race titles.

7. Her second place in the road race at the 2012 Olympics in London was the first medal Team GB claimed at the historic games, where it finished third in the medal table.

8. She suffered from a hiatus hernia in 2013, which was left undiagnosed during the year, her first season with Boels-Dolmans.

9. Her longest-running teammate is Ellen van Dijk. 2014 was the first season that Deignan spent on the same team as the Dutchwoman, who she has gone on to spend eight years with, at Boels-Dolmans and then at Trek-Segafredo.

10. Deignan raced against her current directeur sportif Ina-Yoko Teutenberg on 112 different occasions, with the German coming out on top 61 times. To be fair to Deignan, this was in her early years.

11. One of her most momentous victories came in 2014, when she beat Anna van der Breggen at the Ronde van Drenthe. Despite being almost two years younger, Van der Breggen retired in 2021.

12. She became the fourth-ever British woman to win the World Championships road race when she triumphed in Richmond, Virginia, in 2015, following Cooke, Beryl Burton and Mandy Jones. “I’ve got in trouble from a few people for not putting my hands up in the air,” she said. “It was absolute shock. You’ve got all that 130km of being totally focused and as soon as you cross the line it takes a few seconds to realise what’s happened."

13. She has finished in the top ten of the World Championship road race six times.

14. 2015 and 2016 saw Deignan at the top of the sport, as in two seasons she won the Trofeo Alfredo Binda, the British National Championships again, GP de Plouay, the Worlds, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Strade Bianche, the Tour of Flanders, and the Womens Tour.

15. She was a trailblazer in becoming a mother and then returning to the sport. She moved from Boels-Dolmans to Trek-Segafredo during her maternity. In 2018, she said: "My career was up in the air really but I was then approached by Trek. I was concerned about my future in the sport as it hasn't really happened before at elite level road cycling."

16. She married former Team Sky cyclist Philip Deignan in 2016, changing her name from Armitstead to Deignan in the process.

17. Lizzie Deignan is a pescatarian, something she has been since the age of ten.

18. When Deignan won the first women's Paris-Roubaix in 2021, she became the only woman to complete the triple of women's monuments: the Tour of Flanders (2016), Liège-Bastogne-Liège (2020) and Roubaix.

19. She had a second child, Shea, in 2022, which caused her to miss the entire 2022 season. Deignan said this year: "Leaving Shea before he was sleeping through the night, the control freak in me was wanting all those things to be set in stone before I left, but turns out he slept through the night the day I left. So he knew the plan.”

20. In doing so, and returning to action, she became the first female professional to have two children and return to racing. “I know the journey. I know how it works. I know that I have to trust in the process and my body,” she said this year. “Logically, I know that if I don’t feel 100 percent now then in a month, dramatic changes can happen. So that experience is useful."

21. She missed the first Tour de France Femmes due to the pregnancy, but worked at it as a television pundit, which gave her the urge to take part when she got the chance. "I felt like a fan and really soaked up the atmosphere, but at the same time it was reassuring being there because I still had the urge to race," she said. "I really wanted to the on the other side of the fence, with my teammates. I’m not ready to be a fan just yet!"

Lizzie Deignan, Elynor Bäckstedt and Elinor Barker will headline a six-rider strong Great Britain Cycling Team squad at the upcoming Tour of Britain Women, British Cycling has confirmed. 

Two-time Women’s Tour winner Deignan will likely lead the team in what will be the inaugural edition of the race under the British Cycling banner. 

The race gets underway next week in Welshpool, Wales on 6 June, giving both Bäckstedt and Barker the opportunity to race on home roads. Anna Henderson, Millie Couzens and Flora Perkins will complete the Great Britain Cycling team selection. 

Four women’s WorldTour teams, including SD Worx-Protime - the team of current road World Champion Lotte Kopecky - will provide stiff opposition for the likes of Deignan as the Great Britain team look to challenge for overall victory. 

Nevertheless, Bäckstedt told Cycling Weekly that the group would look to "show off the talent" within the squad across the four days of action. 

"We will definitely have a really strong team there," she said. "As Team GB we will have a group of such strong riders there, and just come out in full force really. I think we definitely have got a good chance overall, and we've got a good chance at each of the stages. So we'll definitely give it our best shot and race the best we can as a team and just really show off the talent that GB has coming through at the moment.

"We've known each other a long time. I've got my regular teammate, Lizzie, in the team, which is really nice. And a lot of the girls I've either grown up with, or I've raced World Championships with before...We all just want to do the best for ourselves and also try to display the racing talent of our country."

She added: "It's really huge [to get to ride for Great Britain]. There's not that many times throughout the year where this is actually a possibility. So it's really nice to race with new people, the people that you would normally be competing against."

The first two days of racing will take place in Wales. Bäckstedt explained that she was excited to get stuck into the route assembled, particularly in front of a home crowd.

"I think it's going to make for some really hard racing," she said. "There's some really tough stages, which I think, really shows off British roads quite well. It is a tough country to race your bike in and that's what makes it so fun. I might find some of the climbs a little bit challenging, but I'm going to have a lot of fun throughout it all. 

"Having two stages in Wales is obviously really great. There's nothing quite like racing in Wales especially, it's just so different and it's so nice to have a Welsh crowd there as well."

British Cycling Performance Director, Stephen Park said that the event will provide the riders with the ideal opportunity to stake a claim for an Olympic spot later this summer. 

"We know that the team will relish the rare opportunity to race at home, and for the Paris hopefuls among the squad, the event will play a crucial role in the final preparations for the Games," he said. "We know that they’ll add real strength and stardust to the race and expect fans will be out in force to show their support."

The Tour of Britain Women will start in Welshpool on 6 June, wrapping up three days later in Leigh, Greater Manchester. 

Four weeks after breaking her arm in a crash at the Tour of Flanders, Lizzie Deignan is set to ride La Vuelta Femenina, which begins on Sunday.

Lidl-Trek announced their squad for the eight-stage Grand Tour on Thursday, and Deignan was a surprise addition, considering the severity of her injury, sustained early on in a crash at Flanders.

"I’m happy to have recovered in time for the Vuelta; I’m really looking forward to it and getting the first stage race of my season under my belt. It was obviously disappointing to crash out of Flanders, and I definitely missed racing the remaining Classics," Deignan said, Cyclingnews reported.

"However, everything has gone really smoothly since, and my recovery has maybe been better than we even expected, so it’s great to be in a position to be able to resume racing already."

She will be joined in Spain by Elisa Longo Borghini, Ellen van Dijk, Amanda Spratt, Elynor Bäckstedt, Brodie Chapman, and Gaia Realini. Longo Borghini and Realini are the likeliest leaders for a strong Lidl-Trek squad, who will go up against the likes of Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime) and Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM).

Deignan's broken arm was the first fracture of her career, she revealed post-Tour of Flanders.

At the time, the 35-year-old said that she had "been swimming against the tide recently so I will first take time to recover and then change my direction".

"In terms of my expectations for the race, it will firstly be to get through the eight days safely and to be stronger at the end than I am at the beginning," Deignan said this week.

"To be at the start line in a team role is really nice and it’s a good chance to build my form as it means I can get loads of work done, and that’s what I need."

"Overall, we have a really strong group of women racing and I think it's going to be a good chance for us to keep the momentum we built in the Spring Classics going and to get some more results," she said.

Deignan's big goal for the rest of the season is the Paris Olympics, which she is hoping to be selected for, 12 years on from the silver medal she won in the road race at the London Olympics.

She will go on to lead the Great Britain team at the Tour of Britain Women, which takes place at the beginning of June.

Lizzie Deignan says that a broken arm in April shouldn't derail her goals, ahead of the Paris Olympics this summer. 

The British rider sustained the first fracture of her career in a crash at the Tour of Flanders, which then saw her ruled out of Paris-Roubaix and all of the Ardennes Classics, races that she was hoping to peak for. 

Nevertheless, Deignan is optimistic that her injury shouldn’t disrupt her big target of selection for the Paris games this summer. 

Deignan told Cycling Weekly and a small group of other reporters that her injury had inevitably come at a bad time, but she was confident she would still be able to force her way into contention. 

"I think the main concern for me is that this has happened during Olympic selection time," she said. "So I’ve missed a good chunk of races that I was peaking for in terms of getting myself selected for the Olympic games. 

"But there’s plenty of time to be ready and prepared to race there, although I think selection is harder than it's ever been before, so that's obviously bad timing for me. 

"I think I just have to make the most of the recovery that I can," she added. "So I can make sure with the extra time at home that I’m on top of other things… I’m just trying to be as focused and as professional as I can be."

Deignan was speaking on the day British Cycling released the route for the Tour of Britain Women. The 35-year-old is set to lead the GB team at the race and said that once she is fully recovered, she will be targeting an overall win. 

"It's a race that will offer lots of opportunities," she said. "I’m excited particularly about the harder days around Manchester, the hillier stuff in the Peaks, I think that will suit me. I’m excited to be able to race it with the GB team as well. It’s not often that I get to race as a British person on a British team, often I’m with Lidl-Trek. 

"Every opportunity you get to race together as a British squad is important I think, particularly in an Olympic year and in preparation for the World Championships. It’s nice to be able to be in that setup," said the 2015 World Champion.

"I think it’s important to go into an Olympic games having won a big race," Deignan affirmed. "The Women’s Tour has always suited me, racing in Britain has always suited me, and I think the terrain wherever you are in the country, it's kind of relentless and often I feel like it means I have opportunities to come away with a win," said the Yorkshirewoman. 

"Looking towards the Women’s Tour, I’d want to perform there and come away with a win to build some confidence going into the Olympic games," she added.

In terms of healing from her current injury, she added "I'm waiting to see an orthopaedic surgeon so I shall know soon about how I am but it's better than expected I think. l will definitely be fit and ready by the time the Tour of Britain Women comes around anyway."

Deignan said that she was drawing on her experience of getting back fit after having two children to help get her back to where she needs to be. 

"Luckily my husband has broken several bones so he’s been able to guide me through it," she said. "It’s about being patient. I am struggling a little bit to know what is a good level of pain, because I’ve been told that sometimes you have to push through certain levels of pain particularly with the injury that I have. 

"In order to get full mobility back, I need to push myself to straighten my arm more than I might want to and things like that. So I’m figuring out my limits, but it's not something that I can recall with experience. Other riders have just told me to be mindful and to not rush it, so I’m just trying to follow that too."

Lidl-Trek’s Lizzie Deignan is set for a spell out of action after suffering a broken arm at the Tour of Flanders on Sunday, and has said she will "change direction" when she bounces back.

Deignan explained on Instagram on Monday that the fracture marked her first of her entire professional career. 

"So happy to be a part of Lidl-Trek’s brilliant classics campaign so far," she wrote. "Unfortunately that came crashing down yesterday when I broke my arm. I am lucky enough to say that after 15 years pro this is my first broken bone. 

"It feels like I’ve been swimming against the tide recently so I will first take time to recover and then change my direction. Thanks for so many lovely concerned messages."  

Lidl-Trek shared a brief update regarding the specifics of Deignan’s injury on Sunday afternoon which explained the full details of the fracture that she suffered. 

"Lizzie Deignan’s tenth participation in the Ronde van Vlaanderen ended with a DNF and, unfortunately, in the worst possible way," the team wrote. "Involved in a crash in the early part of the race, with 145 km to go, Lizzie Deignan was forced to withdraw the race and taken to the nearby hospital for checks. 

"Unfortunately, x-ray showed the fracture of the radial head of the right arm."

Lidl-Trek went on to win the Tour of Flanders through Elisa Longo Borghini. The win was the Italian's second at the Belgian Monument, and puts her in a select club with Deignan as winners of both Paris-Roubaix Femmes and De Ronde.

Deignan’s fracture will keep her out of Roubaix this Sunday - a race she famously won before - but the exact impact the injury will have on her schedule is currently unknown. 

SD Worx-Protime’s Marlen Reusser was involved in the same crash and is set to undergo surgery on Tuesday to address some of the seroious injuries she suffered. 

The Swiss rider suffered a fractured jaw and broken teeth in the incident as well as other injuries. 

"The current Swiss champion underwent further examinations today at the Inselspital in Bern with the following diagnosis: in addition to the jaw, both ear canals and eight teeth are also broken. The 32-year-old will undergo surgery tomorrow, Tuesday, and will have to wear splints for around four weeks," read a statement from her team, SD Worx-Protime.

Reusser shared several images on Instagram of herself in hospital after the incident in which a deep cut was visible on her chin. 

"I’m doing well and I’m in good spirits that I’ll soon be completely healthy again," she said. 

This article is part of Cycling Weekly's 'the ride that changed me' series. Our writers hear from a range of professional and ex-professional cyclists about that one day on the bike that changed the trajectory of their career for good. 

Elisa Longo Borghini is one of a select few riders that can count a huge, Paris-Roubaix cobblestone trophy amongst her collection. Only some of the very best Classics riders - Eddy Merckx, Lizzie Deignan, Peter Sagan and Tom Boonen to name a few - can do likewise. 

As the second-ever winner of the women’s edition of the iconic cobbled classic, you would be forgiven for assuming that Longo Borghini would have highlighted her Roubaix win as that ride that changed her. The reality is that the big turning point in her career came far earlier than that fabled day in Belgium. 

The Italian Classics star tells Cycling Weekly that one of the biggest turning points in her career came on a rain swept afternoon in Varese, northern Italy. 

“So the ride that changed me was [Trofeo Alfreda] Binda 2013 which sounds like ages ago,” she says. “Actually, it is a while ago now and I won that race.”

“It was a very cold, rainy and grey day,” she adds. “It was my first World Cup - because at the time there were still World Cups - victory in all my career and the second victory in my life as an elite rider. 

“I was just delighted to win the race, I was really not expecting it because I was coming from 10 days where I was doing only easy rides because I had a problem with my left calf muscle. I just went into the race with no pressure and no thoughts [of winning].”

Riding for the Hitec Products UCK team at the time, Longo Borghini came up against several riders that she would eventually call teammates later on in her career at Trek-Segafredo (now Lidl-Trek). 

She recalls that when it came to crunch time and she decided to launch her race winning move, only one of those future teammates could follow. 

“I remember attacking on a descent because it was really wet,” she says. “I was like, 'okay, I'll try to make my attack here' and then I went away and only Spratty [Amanda Spratt] could follow me. 

"We stayed together for a little bit and then I dropped her on the last climb. When I crossed the line, I was really freezing but I was not feeling anything at the time because it was so much to enjoy.”

Nowadays when crossing the line first, Longo Borghini, like most other riders, would no doubt be seen sipping a recovery drink as she makes her way to the podium. But not back then. 

After such a foul day on the bike in bleak conditions, there was only one thing for it. Descend on the nearest restaurant to enjoy good food and drink and celebrate a momentous victory with friends and family. 

“After that I remember that we went to a restaurant and we ate two pizzas. I mean, I ate two pizzas,” she says with a laugh. “It was because I was so hungry and my parents were so happy and they were like 'okay, we just eat whatever we want' and I remember eating two pizzas and still being hungry because of the ride.

“So yeah, the reason why I chose this race is because I was really young at the time and I had no knowledge of where I could stand in the elite peloton. 

"There I realised that I could actually be quite alright and that my dreams could become true. And here I am now talking about it.”

Join us for the next instalment of 'the ride that changed me' in a fortnight's time.

Lizzie Deignan has said the uncertainty around the future of the Women’s Tour is “frustrating” particularly with the Olympics approaching. 

Cycling Weekly reported last week that the race is at risk of vanishing completely after the promoter, SweetSpot, entered liquidation due to being beset by severe financial difficulties in recent months. 

Deignan told Cycling Weekly that the permanent loss of the race from the women's WorldTour calendar would be particularly significant this year, with a lot of riders set to use the event as a warm up event for the Paris Olympics. 

"I’m really sorry to hear the news about SweetSpot,” she said. "Obviously I hope this isn’t the end of the Women’s Tour as that would be a shame for women’s cycling in the UK. It is such an iconic race with a big following and fanbase so I hope it can still return.

“This year it also falls at a crucial time in the season for Olympic preparation so the uncertainty around whether it is happening or not is frustrating.” 

Many will be looking at British Cycling to implement a rescue plan for both the Women’s Tour and the Tour of Britain in the coming months. The national governing body stripped the Tour of Britain race licence from SweetSpot last Autumn over an alleged unpaid race licence fee. 

It's understood that as well as the men’s race, British Cycling will also strive to ensure that the future of the Women’s Tour is also not left in the balance. 

A British Cycling spokesperson told Cycling Weekly: “We are making every possible effort to ensure that the Tour of Britain and a UCI Women’s World Tour stage race take place in 2024 and beyond, and will be in a position to provide further details in the coming weeks.”

Deignan acknowledged the positivity of British Cycling’s statement but said that she hoped a resolution could be reached quickly.  

She added: “It’s encouraging that British Cycling have said they are making every effort to make sure it happens though and I hope we can get some clarification soon.”

Deignan’s team, formerly known as Trek-Segafredo, have triumphed at the Women’s Tour twice in recent years. Deignan took the victory herself in 2019 and her teammate, Elisa Longho Borghini, won the race in 2022. 

Longo Borghini’s victory was also the last time the race was held. It was postponed in 2023 after SweetSpot’s financial issues first materialised. The promoter cancelled the race due to a lack of sponsorship funds. 

Longo Borghini echoed the sentiment of her teammate and said that the race had helped “raise the level” of women’s cycling. 

“It was slowly becoming one of the races that riders were looking at in their calendar to race,” she said. “So I will be very very sad [if it does not take place].” 

“It was an important stage race,” she added. “It always had a very good parcours, was very well organised, the crowd was really nice and you could feel a good vibe there. We as riders were always really happy to race it.

“I also have very good memories of the race. Especially from 2019 winning the GC with Lizzie, then in 2022 winning the GC myself in that very thrilling finale.” 

Elisa Longo Borghini, the most recent winner of the Women’s Tour, has said that the race not being held would be a major blow for the peloton. 

The Italian triumphed in the 2022 edition of the race, which happened to be the last time it was held before it was then postponed the following year by the promoter SweetSpot. 

Cycling Weekly revealed on Thursday that SweetSpot - the former promoter of both the Tour of Britain and the Women's Tour - has now entered liquidation after being beset by financial difficulties all but confirming the race is now at risk of vanishing completely. 

Longo Borghini said that she feared for the future of the race and highlighted its importance on the women’s WorldTour calendar.  

She said: “It's not nice if the Women's Tour is not taking place this year too because it's been one of the first races to really raise the level of women's cycling.

“It was slowly becoming one of the races that riders were looking at in their calendar to race. So I will be very very sad [if it does not take place].” 

“It was an important stage race,” she added. “It always had a very good parcours, was very well organised, the crowd was really nice and you could feel a good vibe there. We as riders were always really happy to race it.” 

As well as her own victory in 2022, Longo Borghini was also part of the Trek-Segafredo [now Lidl-Trek] team when Lizzie Deignan won the overall classification in 2019. 

“I also have very good memories of the race,” she explained. “Especially from 2019 winning the GC with Lizzie, then in 2022 winning the GC myself in that very thrilling finale.” 

The Italian also acknowledged that the potential loss of the race would be a huge disappointment for cycling fans in Britain. 

She said: “I did notice that the fans were always really cheering and they were really involved in the race and it was really nice for us, I can tell you. 

“I always really like to race in the UK because the people are very kind, they are very cheerful. Of course it will be something that they will miss, but we are also going to miss them. It also works the other way you know, we will be missing them too.”

After stripping SweetSpot of the Tour of Britain race licence last Autumn, all eyes now turn to British Cycling and the governing body’s plans for the future of the women's and men’s races. 

It's understood that as well as the Tour of Britain, British Cycling will also strive to ensure that a women's event will take place within the existing Women's Tour calendar slot. 

A British Cycling spokesperson told Cycling Weekly: “We are making every possible effort to ensure that the Tour of Britain and a UCI Women’s World Tour stage race take place in 2024 and beyond, and will be in a position to provide further details in the coming weeks.” 

The festive period is well and truly in the past and the new WorldTour season is already underway. 

Kicking things off once again is the Santos Tour Down Under which is currently taking place in Adelaide, Australia on Friday. With that in mind, all of us at Cycling Weekly have been pulling on our thinking caps and coming up with a list of predictions for the upcoming action. 

Unlike last year’s slightly more audacious predictions, in which our former news editor, Vern Pitt, made the call that Jonas Vingegaard won’t win a race, we've made an effort to rein in our imaginations this time round. 

If you have a particular view on how the 2024 season will pan out, or a prediction you'd like to share with us, feel free to email tom.thewlis@futurenet.com. 

Tadej Pogačar will win the Giro d'Italia - James Shrubsall

The Slovenian star knows exactly what it takes to hit top form in late spring – see Liège-Bastogne-Liège 2021 or last year's Amstel Gold Race for proof.

But he'll have more than the Ardennes Classics on his mind this April, as he gears up for what will be a first tilt at the Giro d'Italia, set to start in Veneria Reale, just outside Turin on May 4.

The Italian Tour is part of a Giro d'Italia-Tour de France double that Tadej Pogačar has lined up for this summer. Should he manage to succeed in winning this highly sought-after pair, he will be the first rider to do so since Marco Pantani in 1998 and become only the eighth rider in history.

Predicting that Pogačar will manage this might be a step too far – it's certainly not impossible but would require so many stars to align that it would feel like little more than pub chat at this stage. But the Giro? I would be surprised not to see Pogačar wearing rosa in Rome.

This far out, the provisional start list for the race is skeletal to say the least. But on current best predictions there is only one rider who can beat Pogačar in a Grand Tour – a certain diminutive Dutchman who, as far as we know, won't be troubling him at the Giro d'Italia.

The UAE Team Emirates rider's biggest rival to be named so far is perhaps Geraint Thomas – second last year by just 14 seconds and who may feel he has unfinished business. Thomas, who will celebrate his 38th birthday on the race's final mountain stage, is unlikely to worry Pogačar though, and the Slovenian has pencilled in a cracking support team including Jay Vine and Rafał Majka, who has six Grand Tour top-10s of his own under his belt.

What's more, this being the Slovenian's debut ride at the bella corsa, he's likely to be super-motivated and confident. Not unbeatable, but not far off.

 SD Worx will be even more dominant - Tom Davidson

There’s an ominous feeling around SD Worx ahead of the new cycling season. It’s like waiting for a dam to burst. The water’s there, it’s building up, and as soon as it finds a crack, it’ll break through and destroy everything in its path. 

That was what happened last year, anyway. The Dutch squad were unstoppable, a torrent sweeping through the calendar, filling out podiums and toppling other riders’ dreams. 

The team managed a whopping 62 victories in 2023, mostly thanks to Demi Vollering, Lotte Kopecky and Lorena Wiebes. Now, there’s a feeling they’ll do it all again. 

After all, who will challenge them? Annemiek van Vleuten gave them the best run for their money last year, the Dutchwoman winning two of the major tours in the Vuelta Femenina and the Giro d’Italia Donne. But Van Vleuten has now retired, and I can’t see anyone else on the same level. 

Maybe this will be the year Lidl-Trek’s Gaia Realini makes her name. Or perhaps Juliette Labous will go on a winning spree for dsm-firmenich PostNL. Could Kasia Niewiadoma pip Vollering to the yellow jersey at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift?

For the neutral fan, a break in the dominance would probably be welcome. Don’t bet on it, though. If this season plays out how I expect it to, SD Worx could push the 70 mark for race wins.

Primož Roglič will win the Tour de France - Tom Thewlis

Once he had been left out of last year’s Tour de France squad, it seemed like it would only be a matter of time before Primož Roglič’s residency at Jumbo-Visma came to an end. The Slovenian was never going to sit on the sidelines and show a willingness to play second fiddle to Jonas Vingegaard. 

And why should he? Roglič is undoubtedly one of the best Grand Tour GC riders currently on the WorldTour and deserves the opportunity to have another shot at Tour glory. As is well documented, Roglič came agonisingly close to a maiden Tour win in 2020 before he was beaten in that time trial on the Planche des Belles Filles. 

Now he’s moved on to pastures new with Bora-Hansgrohe, and I think this summer will be when he finally exorcises the ghosts of 2020 and pulls on the yellow jersey in Paris for his first ever Tour win. 

Roglič’s Giro win last year seems to have filled him with an even bigger hunger for Grand Tour dominance. As well as the Giro, the 34-year-old won pretty much every stage race he started last season and is more than ready for another shot at the Tour. 

Considering the talents of his competitors - particularly Remco Evenepoel - some may say that age is against Roglič. However, that thought won’t even enter the Slovenian’s head. 

He is a Swiss army knife of a cyclist: he can time trial with the best, win the toughest of mountain stages and sweep up bonus seconds on seemingly innocuous uphill finishes. With the right selection of teammates behind him, Roglič will be a force to be reckoned with this summer and I believe he could well go all the way for his new team. 

Lizzie Deignan will win one of the Monuments - Michelle Arthurs-Brennan 

Lizzie Deignan didn’t win a race in 2023. Considering she welcomed her son in September 2022, I would suggest that anyone who finds her lack of snap in the year that followed surprising perhaps doesn’t have the greatest understanding of what’s involved in growing a baby, birthing that baby, and going on to be a parent (in her case, of two). 

That’s not to say that some riders can’t return to their best in a short space of time, but a quiet year and a fight back to full fitness is certainly understandable. Family chicken-pox and Covid probably didn’t help, either. 

Whilst Deignan did win the Women’s Tour overall in 2019 (the year after her daughter arrived, in September 2018), her next best result was seventh at Liège–Bastogne–Liège. A year later, in 2020, Deignan won Liège, and Paris-Roubaix the year after that. 

We’ve seen the Lidl-Trek rider return to the top step of the podium, and I believe we’ll see that again, given time. There were flashes of the former World Champion’s previous dominance at the likes of the Glasgow road race; Deignan eventually settled for sixth, but only after riding an attacking race and joining a late breakaway. 

Speaking at a Lidl-Trek training camp, the 35-year-old said: “I just need to win again. Last season was my first season where I didn't have a victory. And I would like to reverse that trend. I know I can. I think a strong winter behind me is all I needed.”

Deignan already has wins at Flanders, Liège and Paris-Roubaix - the three races of the five monuments in cycling which have women’s events. The Yorkshirewoman has won all three in the past, Flanders being the most distant (in 2016), so I’ll stick my neck out and put my bets on her targeting the race at the end of March for her first win of 2024. 

Soudal Quick-Step will have another Classics season to forget - Adam Becket

Since its inception, Soudal Quick-Step, in all its iterations, have dominated the Classics, winning eight of 21 editions of the Tour of Flanders. Out of the 21 times Quick-Step have raced Dwars door Vlaanderen, the team has only finished outside of the top 10 twice.

However, 2023 was the first time since 2013 that the Belgian team did not win any race that could ostensibly be called a Classic, or a semi-Classic, or a cobbled Monument. This trend of underperformance will not change this year, or it is unlikely to, anyway.

The team synonymous with March and April's one-day races is no longer built to challenge at the Classics, that's the truth, it is a Grand Tour machine for Remco Evenepoel, who Patrick Lefevere hopes will be the future of Belgian cycling and the team.

Many of its fans remain wedded to the cobbles of Flanders and northern France, though, as does Lefevere, so it might be another tough season of adjustment for the squad and those on its roadside. 

This isn't to say the likes of Yves Lampaert, or Kasper Asgreen are bad riders, they just haven't looked capable of matching Wout van Aert or Mathieu van der Poel in recent years. The team does not have one of those talents who are almost nailed on to win a Monument, even if they do have one who is capable of winning a Grand Tour.

Wout van Aert will win Paris-Roubaix - Tom Thewlis

If it wasn’t for a last minute puncture in the closing stages of the race, Wout van Aert may well have been able to mount more of a challenge at last year’s Paris-Roubaix, and could have pushed Mathieu van der Poel for the victory in the hallowed velodrome. 

Of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I really believe the race would have been closer last year were it not for that late incident on the cobbletones. 

Van Aert is a former Monument winner, but the Belgian and his Visma-Lease a Bike team have long sought after a potential Roubaix or Tour of Flanders victory. With that in mind, Van Aert’s cyclo-cross schedule this winter was very reduced as he builds form to enable him to hit the ground running at the Spring Classics this year. 

It seems that his coaches are targeting a repeat of the first few weeks of the 2022 road season. Van Aert arrived mentally and physically fresh at Opening Weekend two years ago and that resulted in him soloing to an epic Omloop Het Nieuwsblad victory. 

The Belgian has just one cyclo-cross race left on his programme this winter as this year’s opening weekend draws near. 

"Last year, I found it mentally difficult to focus on the cyclo-cross season and then move on to the spring," said Van Aert previously on team. "[This year] I didn't want to leave anything to chance with the Spring Classics."

For a rider of his talents and physical capabilities, it feels like it's only a matter of time before Van Aert lands one of his most coveted prizes. I think his decision to reduce his cross programme this winter will pay off and he will take home the Roubaix title in April. 

This article is part of Cycling Weekly's 'the ride that changed me' series. Our writers hear from a range of professional and ex-professional cyclists about that one day on the bike that changed the trajectory of their career for good.

Coming into the summer of 2012, Lizzie Deignan was a rising star and on a rapid upward trajectory within her sport. The then 23-year-old had already won the first edition of the women’s Gent-Wevelgem and was beginning to be talked up as a future one-day specialist of the highest level. 

It would be easy to assume that a young rider in that position would be full of self-confidence; however, Deignan tells Cycling Weekly that coming into the Olympic Games, she in fact questioned her right to be there. That would swiftly change in the rainy streets of London as she became the first British athlete to land a medal at the home Olympics, taking silver in the women’s road race. 

“It changed me because it meant that I no longer had the imposter syndrome of trying to be a professional athlete trying to attain a dream,” Deignan says as she recalls her memories of that important day. 

“I was amongst the best, I was an Olympic medallist and I think that sets you apart from other people and therefore gives you a huge sense of confidence that you can achieve something on the hardest of days.” 

The year before London 2012, Deignan - along with her coaches - had made the decision that her raw talent was best suited to the road. Pushing the likes of the Netherland’s Marianne Vos was proof that the decision was justified, and showed Deignan’s growing ability and talent. 

“I think the silver medal in the road race was a massive kind of justification, I suppose,” she explains. “What's the word I'm looking for? It meant I made the right decision, basically. And it also meant that the potential that I thought I had on the road was real. I had the potential to be there on the hardest day, on the most important day at a home Olympics, competing with the best in the world and the silver medal felt like gold to me. 

“It was just a massive turning point in my career because it made me more self confident and more ambitious.”

In the years that followed, Deignan would go on to triumph in the mud of Flanders and on the cobblestones of Roubaix in cycling’s biggest and most important one-day Classics in France and Belgium. 

But it was in the streets of London that she began to further define herself as a one-day racer and built the foundations for the success that would follow. 

The summer rain thundered down upon Deignan, Vos and Russia’s Olga Zabelinskaya as the trio pushed on in a three-up breakaway and prepared themselves to contest for the medals. 

“Obviously it was a home Olympics and the pressure was on and the rain was coming down,” Deignan remembers. “It was epic weather conditions which suited me down to a tee and also suited the breakaway. 

"I think we stayed away, particularly because of the weather, you know, racing through a city on wet roads means that it's much easier to go through corners faster in a breakaway than a chasing bunch. 

“The crowds just roared us on. It was like an eternal tunnel of noise,” she adds. “It was just the most spectacular experience I've ever had in bike racing. Yeah, in front of the home crowd but specifically in Olympic games where you are in a breakaway of three and you know that you're racing towards a medal.”

Lizzie is an ambassador for Cycleplan, the cycling insurance specialist.

Join us for the next instalment of 'the ride that changed me' in a fortnight's time.

Lizzie Deignan was full of positivity after her strong showing in the elite women’s road race at the World Championships and believes there is more to come from her in the races and weeks ahead.

Earlier this year, Deignan made her comeback to the women’s WorldTour peloton after giving birth to her second child.

The 34-year-old made the early breakaway in the gruelling race from Loch Lomond to the urban Glasgow circuit which was eventually reeled back in. Once the peloton had broken up into a select group of riders - containing all the pre-race favourites - Deignan launched a late attack in an attempt to outfox the likes of Lotte Kopecky, Demi Vollering and Annemiek van Vleuten amongst others.

Kopecky went on to take the win with Vollering grabbing the runner up spot.

Deignan told the press, including Cycling Weekly, that she had taken a lot of satisfaction in her performance despite her eventual sixth placed finish.

“As a team, I think we rode really well [today]. We were always with the moves and we were just out gunned in the finaI,” she said. “It  wasn't anything other than not having the legs to follow the best in the world.

“I've definitely got further to go, that's why I'm optimistic about my performance and I know, kind of the ups and downs that have come before this. And like I say, there's no such thing as perfect preparation, but a solid winter I think will make all the difference”

Deignan explained that the relentless race had meant that she had to adapt her planned tactics out on the road as the race progressed.

“I'm really pleased with my performance and tactically, I think I did what I could,” she added. “I kind of had to change tactics quite a lot throughout the race… Looking at the other races previously, it was like an early breakaway was a smart move, but the conditions never deteriorated.

“Today, we were hoping for rain and actually it was dry and warm and fast and the break that I was in didn't stick, I burnt a few matches there and then it just kind of felt a bit relentless.”

Deignan only returned to competition in the spring at Liège–Bastogne–Liège and Flèche Wallonne. Despite her absence from racing she explained that she always backed herself to put in a solid performance in Scotland.

“I knew I was capable of it but it's good I guess to kind of put that marker down still but I should probably go in as one of the leaders,” she said when asked about her role in the GB women’s team.

Deignan recently rode the Tour de France Femmes and said that the intense summer of racing combined with parenthood had been a tough balancing act in recent weeks.

She said: “I gambled on just having loads of rest because I think it's really hard between a massive race like the Tour de France and the World Championships to not overcook it. I think a lot of riders are tired. It's a different point in the season, August.

“Normally everyone has a bit of a dip and then comes up again for worlds. And I think I feel that everyone's just a little bit fatigued.

“I'd love to say so, but no, they're just getting a bit more complicated, but we will find that balance,” she explained when asked how she was balancing training and parenthood. “It's not like every other rider on the start line has perfect preparation either and you kind of put that to the back of your mind really when you're on the start line.”

On an early summer’s evening in Monaco, Michael Valgren is bursting with optimism and positivity. After a long absence due to serious injury, the Danish rider is finally making a cautious return to training and competitive racing.

Following a serious crash last June at the Route d’Occitanie, Valgren spent several days in a hospital bed as he recovered from surgery, contemplating his future in the sport. He was also moved from EF Education-EasyPost's senior team to the EF Education-NIPPO development squad as he began his recovery.

Nearly ten months later - thanks to an extensive rehabilitation programme - the Danish rider pinned on race numbers once more at April’s Region Pays de la Loire Tour, and is making solid progress on the long road back to the top.

Speaking to Cycling Weekly from the south of France, Valgren explained how much of a relief it was to be able to experience the buzz and excitement of a competitive race day with his teammates once more.

“When you take a step away from cycling and you’re not part of it, you really find out how much you miss it,” Valgren says. “It’s not even just the racing part, but it’s being away at a race, all the gossip and banter with your teammates. I really missed being a part of that lately.”

Valgren’s heavy crash on stage three of the 2022 Route d’Occitanie left him with a list of horrendous injuries. This included a fractured pelvis, dislocated hip, damage to his ACL and MCL ligaments in his knee as well as a shattered meniscus.

He underwent surgery in Nice to repair the damage to his hip and knee and says that in the immediate aftermath of the crash, he was extremely doubtful that a potential comeback was on the cards whatsoever.  

Comeback in doubt

“Honestly it was just like a double blow,” he says. “First of all the crash was obviously not ideal with the injuries I had and the outcome of that. Then I had to miss the Tour start in Denmark, something we’ll probably never experience again."

"It was like not just one knife but two knives stabbed into me at the same time, it was a really horrible moment and experience to go through to be honest. At the start it was just completely miserable, I felt like there was nothing good to take away from it. Okay, I could maybe come back but I really wasn’t sure.”

“I was just in so much pain for the first month of it all,” he adds. “I spent two weeks in the hospital before I got home. I stayed for three nights in Carcassonne and then ten days in Nice where I had my surgery before I then got back to Monaco."

Valgren says that he has now fully digested all of the emotions that came with nearly being forced to give up something he holds so dear.

“In the first place I thought right, I’m going to get back quick,” he says. "I had an initial prognosis of maybe three months so I thought okay, that’s the rest of this season gone. I’ll work during the off season and get back ready for this year. As time moved on things just weren’t getting better. Two months went past, then three and it was around September when I really started to doubt I could come back.”

It was when the future of his cycling career seemed in question at the end of 2022 that things became difficult. “That’s when I cracked the first time, I just started to cry and said to myself I’m not ready to stop, it’s not how I want to stop, I want to stop when I feel like I don’t want to continue, not like this.”

Fighting back

“I just thought I’m not giving up so easily, I’m going to fight back and try and come back… I always kept believing, even though for the first six months I couldn’t do a pedal stroke,” Valgren continues. 

“My knee was just not working with me. My hip was fine, just my knee wouldn’t cooperate. I only had about 100 degrees of bending when I think you need 150 to do a pedal stroke. I just couldn’t though, it was so painful for me.”

A second knee operation would soon follow that would eventually enable the Dane to start to ride pain free. His first ride without discomfort came in December, a much welcome Christmas gift after many months of hard work and struggle.

“It’s an old saying but what doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger,” he explains. “That 100% applies in this situation. I had to work way harder to get back to normal than what I did just to be a bike rider. I always tried to think ‘ok, I’ve suffered a lot more than I am now’ when I was starting back on the bike.”

Back in the game

Highlighting his friends and family, teammates and physios, the Dane says he was lucky to be able to count on the support and encouragement from those closest to him.

“Throughout this bad moment I’ve had really good people behind me and I can only thank them for where I am today. It could have been a s****how, I could have sunk into depression or something like that, but I never went down that deep hole and that was thanks to those around me that’s for sure.”

Now with several race days ticked off, Valgren says he was pleased with the feeling in his legs at the recent Tour of Norway, but stresses the importance of continuing to take it slowly.

“It was only really March when I was able to train like I normally would have done before I had my first race… I had to remember to be realistic in that race with what I could achieve. I couldn’t expect to win the first one, but I was in the game, I was part of it and not just a passenger which was super nice. Then the same thing happened again at the Tour of Norway.”

Sky is the limit

As well as being motivated by his own steady progress, Valgren explains that he has been inspired during his comeback by two training rides with a former winner of Paris-Roubaix as he builds for further races in the coming weeks.

“Lizzie [Deignan] and I often see each other at the playground with our kids,” he says. “We went out on the bike two days in a row, the first was absolutely pouring down… We’ve both been through the same with making a comeback after a long time away. 

“Lizzie just came back from her pregnancy, her second race was Ride London and she was amazing. It’s so nice to see that a fellow cyclist can be out for so long, but then can come back and be right at the top.”

“It’s people like her and people like Remco [Evenepoel] who had a bad crash that I can kind of look up to and say well if they can do it, I can do it too you know. The sky is only the limit for me.”

Former road world champion Lizzie Deignan has revealed that she plans to make her debut at this summer's Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. 

The Brit, who recently finished third at the three-day Ford RideLondon Classique, returned to racing last month, following the birth of her second child in September 2022. 

Speaking to Cycling Weekly and other outlets at the race in London, Deignan detailed her current schedule, which includes the Tour de Suisse in mid-June, before a duo of Grand Tours in July's Giro d'Italia Donne and Tour de France Femmes. 

"I'm really happy with my progress," she said. “I’ve done more races than I expected to, with those Ardennes at the beginning, but [I’m] still open-minded. I’m not at the top of my game yet. I’m not exactly where I need to be yet, so I’m just happy with the progress.” 

After a year and a half away from the peloton, Deignan returned in a support role at La Flèche Wallone and Liège-Bastogne-Liège in April, before taking on the seven-day La Vuelta Femenina. 

Asked about her upcoming race calendar, the 34-year-old said: “Now I’ll take a little bit of a break, just a couple of days to kind of back off a bit, and then I do the Tour de Suisse, the Giro and then the Tour de France.”

Deignan’s pregnancy meant she missed last year’s inaugural edition of the Tour de France Femmes, won resoundingly by Movistar’s Annemiek van Vleuten. 

This year's event will feature the race’s first-ever haute catégorie climb in the Col du Tourmalet, as well as a final day individual time trial. 

“The fact that we now have a Tour de France shows the state of women’s cycling, the appetite for women’s cycling, the opportunities that are there,” Deignan said in a recent interview with the race organisers, ASO.

“It’s the biggest stage in the world for us as female athletes. If I retired and somebody asked me, ‘Have you ridden the Tour de France?’ and I had to say no, then that would be a disappointment because it’s a global event. 

“You know, everybody has heard of the Tour de France, and to be able to say that I’ve had a part of it is something that I obviously want.” 

Though the Brit is yet to make her Tour debut, she has previously ridden La Course - a now defunct one-day race organised by ASO - and won the 2020 edition.

Lizzie Deignan will return to action for Trek-Segafredo at La Flèche Wallonne and is a possibility for Liège–Bastogne–Liège on April 19 and April 23 respectively.

The British rider announced that she was expecting another child last year, and took time away from racing. After giving birth, Deignan was initially anticipated to be returning to the peloton in Spain at La Vuelta Femenina in early May.

However, a press release from ASO, the organiser of La Flèche Wallonne, released on Friday, hinted at the possible appearance of the former winner of Paris-Roubaix in next Wednesday’s race.

“The field of champions is notably completed by Lizzie Deignan (Trek-Segafredo), returning to competition after giving birth to her second child,” the press release read.

According to a report from Cyclingnews last week, Trek-Segafredo had told Deignan to prepare for both races in case she is needed.

On Monday afternoon Deignan confirmed on social media that she would be riding, that was then followed up by an announcement by her Trek team.

"Where did that 6 months go?!" she wrote on Instagram.

"I actually can’t put it all in to words, Flèche Wallonne here I come."

Deignan won Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes in 2020, and has finished second at Flèche Wallonne in both 2014 and 2017.

Trek-Segafredo are yet to announce their full rosters for Flèche and Liège. However, ASO has listed Deignan, Elisa Longo Borghini and Shirin van Anrooij in the team's squad for Flèche Wallonne. The latter two rode the Amstel Gold Race at the weekend, with Van Anrooij finishing third in the Netherlands.

Longo Borghini has past experience of the Flèche Wallonne podium, finishing third in 2014 and 2021. After recovering from a bout of Covid earlier this spring, she will be a hot favourite for the podium once again next week.

Deignan gave birth to her first child in 2018, and then made her return to racing during the Ardennes Classics in April 2019. After the birth of her second child, she was initially expected to skip the Ardennes this time around, making a return to racing at La Vuelta Feminina in May.

The Spanish stage race has moved on the calendar from its traditional September spot to May.

Her team's initial plan for her was to build form with seven days of racing at the beginning of her comeback, but that may now be extended to include two of the three Ardennes Classics due to rider availability at Trek-Segafredo.

Deignan will then build her season around the Tour de France Femmes in July, before turning her attention to the World Championships road race in Glasgow in August. 

This feature originally appeared in the 14 April 2022 issue of the magazine. 

What’s the proper way to toast one of the most banzai lone rides in all the history of women’s cycling, nay all cycling? If you’ve become the first ever queen of the Queen of the Classics and endured all the punishment and mud that the cobbles of northern France can throw at you, what is the meal befitting of such a champion? Perhaps champagne and caviar. Maybe a steak of kobe beef. Such luxuries are not for 2021 Paris-Roubaix winner Lizzie Deignan. 

“That night we stayed in a budget Ibis, next to a service station in the UK,” she recalls. “It was about one o’clock in the morning, and the only thing that was open was a McDonald’s. So I got a couple of bags of fries and a Diet Coke. That was my celebration.”

Deignan, now expecting her second child, rates her 80km solo ride to become the first ever women’s winner of Paris-Roubaix as among the top three races she’s ever done on a bike; the 2012 Olympics where she was narrowly pipped by Marianne Vos, and her Worlds win in 2015 are the others. As we ask her to recount the events of that day and her thoughts and emotions you can hear a touch of wonder in her voice still.

Until that day in October, 2021 had been something of a year to forget for the Yorkshirewoman. She’d racked up a win at the Tour de Suisse but none of her main goals had come to pass. It was “very disappointing”.

“I had definitely written off the season as one of those years that it didn’t go the way I wanted it to,” she says. “But obviously all that changed on one race day. That is the benefit of a bit of experience, you do realise that as long as you keep chipping away and knocking at the door something good will come.”

Come the morning of Paris-Roubaix in Denain she was so relaxed she had a nap in the bus on the way to the start. It’s not something she’s ever made a habit of. “I can never nap, it is one of those things as a new mother that they always tell you to do, ‘Sleep when the baby is sleeping.’ I’ve just never been able to do it,” she says.

Just outside Denain the race hit its first cobbled secteur, a historic moment. On the approach, Deignan sprinted all out and got a gap. “I was sort of surprised no one came with me, but then I realised it was Lauretta Hanson, my team-mate, on my wheel and I knew she would have left the gap. You would have expected other people to hold the gap, but people just eased up,” she says. 

With her other team-mates out of position and fighting to move up on the cobbles Deignan was largely unaware that she was putting significant time into the peloton on that first secteur. Cycling Weekly wonders if this was when she noticed how good her legs were that day? “I didn’t feel super or anything, but I was in a position of being a worker. It’s a very freeing feeling because you don’t actually care how your legs feel because the responsibility is not on your shoulders. Whereas when you’re a leader, you’re like, ‘Oh no, I don’t feel great.’ You have a lot more mental games going on.

“The first time I thought, ‘Oh, I’m on a good day,’ was when Ina [Yoko Teutenberg, DS] said down the radio, ‘OK, Lizzie you’ve got a gap, but I just need you to ride it 70%.’ I thought, ‘I’m riding pretty tempo.’ And I looked down, and I was already doing 290 watts and I was feeling easy at threshold.”

The following secteurs of cobbles were about finding her rhythm. The night before her room-mate Ellen van Dijk had been studying the course in detail, something Deignan just says increases her anxiety. “There were points in the race where I thought, ‘I should have probably looked at what Ellen was looking at,’ because I didn’t quite know how hard the coming sections were going to be. I had some memory of what was coming. But I had not studied specifically where there was going to be ruts or things like that,” she recalls.

As the race exited secteur 12 (the four star Auchy to Bersée) Teutenberg in the team car was able to come alongside to supply her with fuel for the first time. “I looked down and was doing 290 watts, feeling easy at threshold”

She was aware she needed to eat more as a solo rider but it’s something she finds difficult at the best of times. Topping up the tank She says: “I’m always eating less than a nutritionist would tell you to but I simply can’t eat that much. Particularly at the end of the season I really struggle to stomach gels or energy bars anymore. So I’m often eating waffles or rice cakes.”

Come the five-star Mons-en-Pévèle secteur at 48km to go Deignan was beginning to entertain the possibility of victory. “It was about that point where Ina said, ‘OK, let’s try to take it to 100%.’ And I thought, ‘Well, yeah, that’s already happened, Ina,’” Deignan recalls. Not that Teutenberg had been in her ear constantly. “She kind of left me too. She knows me quite well now. And as with any rider in that situation it’s obvious that you’re in time trial mode. It’s not really about psyching you up because actually, being over-psyched up in that situation isn’t helpful.”

But it was on this secteur that she had her first squirrelly moment with the bike sliding out on the mud-slicked cobbles, something she describes as “a gentle reminder that you’re not invincible”. She adds: “I was always conscious, right up until the end, even right on the velodrome because it was so slippery, that I could crash.”

Watching Deignan ride it’s clear she’s using a smaller gear than you might expect on the cobbles – we ask why. “You’re not the first person to mention it, a couple of the men on the team asked, ‘What gear were you using?’” she says in a tone that conveys a level of friendly, gentle mockery. Her reply: “Well, you win a cobbled Classic and then come and ask me.” She says her 1x set-up which she’d not used before may have been a contributing factor but that a fear of “getting bogged down” was the biggest reason.

As the race powered towards the back-to-back key secteurs of Camphinen- Pévèle and Carrefour de l’Arbre starting at 20km to go Deignan’s gap held firm around the two-minute mark; behind her the cooperation between the chasers was, secteur by secteur, cracking.

Deignan took some “mental stability” from the knowledge that if she was caught her team-mates could attack but wasn’t aware of the chasers’ waning cooperation. “The only thing I was conscious of was Ina shouting down the radio at Ellen [van Dijk], Elisa [Longo Borghini] and Audrey [Cordon- Ragot] to ‘be at the f***ing front’ on every cobbled secteur and, ‘what the f**k are you doing?’ when they weren’t.”

By now Deignan’s eating, which she was doing on tarmac sections as she tried to gather herself, was becoming something of a problem. “It was about 25km to go where I started to throw up. I’d obviously reached the limit of what my stomach was capable of digesting. Ina came up to me in the car and I said, ‘Ina, I’m vomiting,’ and she said, ‘Well, what did you expect?’ Typical Ina.” Deignan asked for, and received, a flat Coke to try and calm her stomach.

It was on Camphin-en-Pévèle where Deignan came closest to falling off, skidding to one side of the cobbles and then back the other way as she wrestled the bike into a straight line. “I’ve had so many people say to me, ‘You’re so skillful,’ but honestly, I’m not. I just I had an angel on my shoulder that day with the good legs and the good skills.”

As Roubaix neared the crowds got bigger. “There was a guy from Yorkshire on the side of the road and who shouted, ‘Do it for the north,’ which really made me laugh.” She could use the encouragement as behind Vos had attacked the chasing group and was beginning to take time out of Deignan.

“I knew that she would take a chunk of time out of me,” says the Yorkshirewoman, who was starting to cramp in the closing stages. “But then I also started to look at my power, my speed and I started to work out mathematically that, it’s not possible [for her to catch me], as long as I make it over these cobbles with a certain amount of time ahead, it’s still OK.”

Deignan’s maths would prove right. Vos swiftly ate into Deignan’s two minute lead, cutting it to around 1.20, but she could get no further.

When did Deignan become confident she was going to win? “When the bell rang in the Roubaix Velodrome and I looked across and she still wasn’t in the velodrome, I thought, ‘OK, I’ve got it.’ Until then I could just feel my tyre pressure on the tarmac (see box); there was nothing in my tyres and I could have punctured at any time.” She didn’t know it at the time but she was right to be fearful as her team car had punctured so assistance would be slow.

One lap after that bell she raised her bloodied hands in victory – she hadn’t been aware of their worsening condition at all during the race – and was promptly lost for words when the TV cameras turned to her.

That morning she’d had no expectation of making history, but that’s just what she’d done. The significance was not lost on her; at the time she said: “We didn’t have a chance to dream for so long; it’s always been a men’s race and I am just so proud that this is where we are, that women’s cycling is on the world stage now.

“I am proud that my daughter can look at the [cobblestone trophy].” To do so though, Deignan reveals, her daughter will have to visit her grandparents. “It travelled back to the UK with us,” she says explaining that two days after Roubaix she started the Women’s Tour in Bicester, Oxfordshire. “It was quite a heavy thing and I was only flying with hand luggage back to France [where she lives in Monaco]. So I gave it to my parents in the UK. It’s in their kitchen somewhere.”

Deignan is not a collector, something she attributes to years spent in small apartments and has precious few other mementos of the day. There is one she now somewhat wishes she’d kept. “One of the members of the team asked me, could they donate the race numbers to, I think it was the Roubaix museum, and I just said yes. At the time I didn’t think about it. But I sort of wish now I’d kept my numbers because I won Flanders with number 13 and I won Roubaix with number 13 so it would have been cool to have both.” She’ll have to settle for visiting the museum on the way back to the cobble at her parents’ in Yorkshire.

Lizzie Deignan, the only woman to have won the Women’s Tour on two occasions, has expressed her disappointment at the cancellation of this year’s race.

The Trek-Segafredo rider won her home race in both 2016 and after her return from maternity leave in 2019 and voiced her support for the organisation when its financial woes were revealed early in March. 

“Obviously I'm really disappointed by the news that the Women's Tour won't be taking place this year,” she told Cycling Weekly after the race’s cancellation was revealed on Friday. 

“It's a shame that someone can't see the value of it as a sponsor considering the crowds it attracts and the quality of racing.”

Since its inception in 2014 the Women’s Tour has been renowned for its tough racing, with one rider saying it was physically far more demanding than the 10 day Giro Donne.

The race was among the first to produce comprehensive highlight on free-to-air TV and has always attracted good crowds, both at stage starts and finishes and along the road, with organisers activating schools who would turn out and cheer the peloton along.

Only the crowds of last year’s Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift were a match for those in Britain, but despite the standing and profile of the Women’s Tour on Friday morning the organisation called time on the 2023 event. 

“Owing to a combination of increased running costs (approximately 20% higher in comparison to the 2022 race) and a reduced level of commercial support, it has proved impossible to deliver the event that was proposed for June,” read the organiser’s press release.

“The decision has been taken now following a three-week renewed appeal for funding, which included an incredibly popular crowdfunding scheme that was enthusiastically supported by over 500 race fans. The Women’s Tour thanks everybody who donated for their unwavering loyalty, as well as all the messages of goodwill that have been sent.”

Deignan has a long and successful relationship with her home Tour, starting six and finishing four of the eight editions to date. And with three stage wins to go with her two general classification victories the race has been a happy hunting ground.

Her attendances have not always been positive experiences though. After withdrawing with injury on the final day of the inaugural edition, in 2015 she won the opening stage but crashed over the line and was forced to withdraw.

The Women’s Tour was a game changer when it came onto the calendar in 2014, bringing much needed professional organisation to a sport where races were largely run by committed, talented but mostly amateur groups.

Riders and teams would praise the organisation and hotels, though the parcours would come in for occasional criticism with stages often concluding with bunch sprints. Though this year’s financial shortfall will need to be addressed, organisers are hopeful the race will return for 2024, as is Deignan. 

“I know it will be a loss for the Women's WorldTour season for a lot of riders. I really hope it will be back bigger than ever next year,” she concluded.

Alastair Campbell, a former spokesman for the Labour Party and Downing Street press secretary under Tony Blair, has publicly backed the GoFundMe campaign to save the Women’s Tour highlighting its importance in the sporting calendar.

Campbell initially took to Twitter to share the GoFundMe page setup by the organiser, calling it sad that they had been forced to set it up, but also highlighting the importance of backing the campaign.

Speaking to Cycling Weekly, Campbell reiterated the significance of the race and the role it has played in the growth of women’s cycling.

“Cycling has had such a renaissance in recent years, for men and women alike and there is no doubt that big high profile events have been a major part of that growth,” Campbell said. “So it is sad to see that the women’s tour has had to go to crowdfunding in order to ensure it goes ahead safely and professionally.”

“In tough economic times, perhaps it is inevitable that sports sponsorship is harder to secure. But it is an important  event in the sporting calendar and worthy of support,” he added. 

Race organiser SweetSpot is looking to raise £100,000 through the GoFundMe campaign which it says is to meet “ever-increasing organisational costs,” as well as a “shortfall from sponsorship income”.

By Wednesday lunchtime the campaign had raised just over £11,600.

Cycling Weekly understands that the campaign has led to new potential sponsors entering into conversations with SweetSpot, although there is no confirmation of anything as yet.

Last week, Lizzie Deignan highlighted the importance of the race and said it would be “a huge loss” if it did not take place.

“The way the race is run is extremely professional and it’s probably been the most professional race we’ve had on the calendar,” Deignan said. 

“It will be a huge loss in terms of the opportunity for British teams to have a stage like that to race on, but also internationally it’s a really important race because June doesn’t have many stage races. It’s brilliant preparation ahead of the national championships and the Tour de France.”

Deignan, a former winner of Paris-Roubaix Femmes, is due to return to racing in May after having her second child and is aiming to hit form in time for the race. If it goes ahead, the Women’s Tour will feature a Queen stage in her native Yorkshire.

“It is what’s been in my mind during training rides,” she added. “If it goes, I need to rethink my whole calendar.” 

There are just three weeks to save the 2023 Women's Tour, Cycling Weekly understands, after the race's organiser launched a crowdfunding campaign in the wake of ongoing sponsorship woes.

Organiser SweetSpot is seeking to raise £100,000 through a GoFundMe campaign to meet “ever-increasing organisational costs, as well as a shortfall from sponsorship income”.

Inflation has hit the race hard with hotel costs for the riders and staff, which run into the hundreds, each night nearly doubling in the last year.

The organisation said: “At present, three of the race’s four prestigious jersey classifications (leader, mountains, and best young rider) remain available, while individual stage partnership packages (including naming rights) are also on offer for the first time for selected days.”

Cycling Weekly understands organisers are hoping to raise £500,000 from a combination of the crowdfundig target and additional sponsorship but that £350,000 may be enough to make the race viable.

It's understood significant funding needs to be in place by Easter weekend, when SweetSpot will start to incur costs for race infrastructure, so a decision on whether to proceed with the 2023 edition can be reached.

The crowdfunding initiative follows the unveiling of the route last week which has been cut from six stages to five in the wake of mounting costs. 

At that time SweetSpot said the race “urgently requires additional commercial income” in order to run in 2023 and that the race is without a vehicle sponsor for its convoy.

Launching the crowdfunding campaign today Nick Bull, Women’s Tour PR manager, said: “Having been inundated with messages from people wishing to show their support for the race over the past week, launching a crowdfunding campaign seemed the logical thing to do. 

“We’ve been blown away by their kind words and everybody associated with the race thanks them for their continued support!”

Also former World Champion Lizzie Deignan has said if the race was unable to go ahead it would be a “huge loss” for the sport.

The Trek-Segafredo rider told PA: “It’s a really important race because June doesn’t have many stage races, so it’s brilliant preparation ahead of the national championships and the Tour de France.

“The way the race is run is extremely professional and it’s probably been the most professional race we’ve had on the calendar.”

This year’s race is due to start in Royal Leamington Spa before visiting Deignan’s home county of Yorkshire on stage three. The race’s finale will be held on a circuit in the centre of Birmingham.

The race’s financial difficulty follows that of its sister series the Tour Series which organiser SweetSpot scrapped earlier this year citing “the most challenging economic climate the series has faced”. 

SweetSpot issued a statement that read: “It has proved impossible to compile a commercially viable calendar of events for May due to the pressures on local authority funding, combined with the wider economic challenges all businesses face.”

Hello, you've made it to Friday and as a treat, here is Cycling Weekly's live blog to tide you over today. I'm Anne-Marije Rook taking over from Adam Becket to bring you everything that's going on in our cycling world on this very wintery day.

If you're in the UL, be sure to pick up our Reviw of the Year issue of Cycling Weeklyin print. There are interviews with Geraint Thomas; Ned Boulting on Mark Cavendish's scintillating National Championship road race win; the inside story of Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl's phone call with the King of the Belgians; and much, much more. You can get subscriptions and single issues here at Magazines Direct.

Key developments

UK time zone:

9.33 - Lizzie Deignan back racing in May

10.36 - Israel-Premier Tech release new kit

11.05 - Peter Sagan on his frosty relationship with Wout van Aert

11.53 - Soudal Quick-Step launch their new jersey

12.34 - Aussie Olympian Alex Porter retires from elite cycling

14.18 - Jonas Vingegaard aims to defend Tour de France title in 2023

US time zone:

10.56 - USA Cycling names its  selection for the 2023 Cycling Esports World Championship

13.22 - Gyroor recalls 3,000 e-bikes due to fire hazard

Lizzie Deignan says she'll be back in May "conservatively"

After missing the entirety of the 2022 season due to expecting and then having her second child, Shea, Lizzie Deignan revealed that she expects to be back racing in May, seemingly at the latest.

The British former world champion posted an answer to a question on Instagram on whether she'd be back in time for Paris-Roubaix: "Conservative plan is to start racing in May so no Roubaix next year... but you never know April is a few months off."

Deignan, who turns 34 on Sunday, has not raced since the 2021 Women's Tour, which followed her victory at the first edition of Paris-Roubaix Femmes in October last year.

Trek-Segafredo also won the second edition through Elisa Longo Borghini, so the team must be intrigued by the possibility of having both champions back in the same squad.

She also said that her second child has been more difficult for her than her first, Orla. "So far I would say recovery has taken longer this time around," she said. "Shea was a much harder baby to carry so did a lot less fitness in pregnancy, and we seem to have been fighting [illness] as a family since he was born!"

Israel-Premier Tech aim to stand out in new kit

Israel-Premier Tech has released its new kit for the 2023 season, the first time the team will be at ProTeam level since 2019.

The jersey is made by its new kit supplier EKOÏ, and is designed to standout in the peloton with its "abstract blue, pink, and orange design of the jersey complimented by simple navy bib shorts which allow the jersey to shine".

Kjell Carlström, the team's general manager, said: "When it came to designing our 2023 kit, we wanted to do something a little different. Our Racing For Change kit at the Tour de France was a huge success and, in our opinion, one of the best kits in the peloton in recent years. 

"So we figured, why not do something a bit different all season long. Blue and white, the Israeli colors, are at the core of our identity. But, as we saw in 2022, there was a lot of blue and white in the peloton. So, we wanted to add some additional color into the mix and create a fresh and modern look that stands out on the bike. 

"Particularly on the back of the jersey, where we have replaced the team logo with the monogram of our star and P from Premier Tech so that we can be easily spotted on television. That’s our aim for 2023: stand out in the peloton when it comes to our kit design and the way we race."

Peter Sagan: Wout van Aert 'disappointed me as a person'

Peter Sagan has said that Wout van Aert disappointed him "as a person" after they clashed on stage three of this year's Tour de France.

The TotalEnergies rider told La Gazzetta dello Sport on Thursday that Van Aert is "a great champion", but he insulted him during that sprint in Sønderborg. Sagan felt that he was boxed out in the finalé, and raised an arm and pointed his finger in protest.

“He’s a great champion. But he insulted me at the Tour, and he hasn’t apologised yet,” Sagan said.

“In this, he disappointed me as a person. I’m waiting for him to come to me, I won’t go to him. And I think he himself understands why.”

In a wide-ranging interview with the Italian sports newspaper, the three-time world champion also touched on why he didn't like being asked if he could still match the best at an elite level. He said: "I’m doing my best, like always, to be ready to fight at the highest level. If I didn’t believe in it, I wouldn’t do it.”

Cyclist killed by lorry in London

A man was killed after being trapped under the wheels of a lorry while riding his bike in west London on Thursday.

The victim was declared dead at the scene at the junction with Charleville Road and North End Road in West Kensington at roughly 3.30pm on Thursday.

He was believed to be the seventh cyclist to be killed on London's roads this year.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “Officers were called at 15:18hrs on Thursday, 15 December to Charleville Road, W14.

“A cyclist was reported to have been in a collision with a lorry. London Ambulance Service and London’s Air Ambulance attended.”

Soudal Quick-Step releases new jersey

It has been a long time coming, and was teased for seemingly forever, but finally, the new Soudal Quick-Step jersey is out.

That's right, for a start Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl are now known as Soudal Quick-Step, having poached their rival Belgian team's sponsor, and now there is a bit more red in what was a largely blue kit.

There's an exciting trailer for the new kit starring Yves Lampaert, and it can already be purchased for €89.95 on Quick-Step's website.

Castelli's second kit for the Belgian super-team is largely blue, with a white bit blasted out of the middle to make way for SOUDAL and its customary red bar. I can already picture Fabio Jakobsen and Julian Alaphilippe winning in it.

UAE Team Emirates face sanctions threat

Our very own Chris Marshall-Bell has an intriguing story in this week's Cycling Weekly, which is that UAE Team Emirates could come under pressure if the UAE faces sanctions from western governments due its relationship with Russia.

The UAE is allegedly facilitating the flow of Russian personnel and money during the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, a reported 275,000 Russians, including individuals sanctioned by the West, have relocated or made frequent visits to the UAE, with some moving their money and assets. Former FBI agent Karen Greenaway told news publication Vox that this “movement of money… allows Russia to continue to run its economy and its war economy.”

Politics and sport mix once again - read the full story for details of how this could affect Tadej Pogačar and co.

Aussie Olympian Alex Porter retires from elite cycling, 18 months on from shock track crash

Alex Porter, the Australian whose handlebars snapped during qualifying for the team pursuit final at the Tokyo Olympics, has retired from elite cycling.

As the four riders rounded a bend, the South Australian slid out at the back of the quartet, a touch of wheels initially suspected to have caused the fall but television replays showing he hadn't been touched, his hands fell and he followed as the handlebars gave way.

AusCycling apologised after releasing a report into the incident last year. The report, conducted by mechanical and aeronautical engineer John Baker, made 14 recommendations after Porter’s bars snapped dramatically during qualifying. The heavy crash left the rider with numerous injuries including friction burns to his face. 

The 26-year-old said: ""After the Tokyo Olympics, it is clear I need to put my health first and this means stepping away from the sport.

"I have been cycling since I was a teenager, it has shaped me into the person I am today, and I am grateful for all the joy it has brought to my life."

Jonas Vingegaard excited by Tour de France route

Jonas Vingegaard has confirmed that he wants to go back to the Tour de France next summer. Not that it was particularly in doubt, but there was some speculation that the Giro d'Italia route would favour him with 52km of time trialling.

The defending champion will, obviously, be at the Tour next summer instead, he explained to RIDE Magazine and WielerFlits.

“I want to go back to the Tour. It seems very special to me to start with back number 1”, Vingegaard said. “I have seen that the Giro d'Italia has enough time trial kilometers that suit me, but I have not looked at that course otherwise.”

“It looks like it will be another tough round. When I first saw the course, my first feeling was that this was a Tour de France more suited to Tadej Pogačar . But the more often and better I look at the trajectory, the harder it seems to get. Every time I study the course, I get the feeling that it suits me better.”

Take a look at Ellen van Dijk's time trial machine for 2023

Trek-Segafredo has revealed Ellen van Dijk's rainbow-themed time trial bike for 2023, which commemorates the Dutchwoman's third time trial world championship, which she won back in September.

The silver machine is a top of the range Trek Speed Concept, and has the rainbow bands around the front forks and the super-aero seat tube too. 

Berkeley squared: Strava art takes over Californian city

Over 32 hours of moving time in the summer, Ruben Murillo covered pretty much all of Berkeley, California on Strava, riding a mountain bike and a single speed. 

The whole thing actually took 270 hours, roughly 11 days, and saw him cycle 560.92km, not a bad effort, all things considered.

18 riders to represent Team USA at the virtual Esport Cycling World Championships in February 

USA Cycling today named its 18-rider team for the 2023 UCI Cycling Esports World Championships coming up in February.

Now in its third year, the Esport World Championships, held on Zwift, will feature three short and explosive elimination events, and in the end only one female and one male rider will walk away with the virtual rainbow jersey.

Team USA will be sending a stacked squad with the hopes of wrapping that jersey around an American rider's avatar. 

With nominations from both the UCI and USA Cycling, 11 men and 7 women were selected to toe the virtual starting line from their living rooms.  

Race favorites will be Kristen Kulchinsky (Team Twenty 24), who is currently the top-ranked female in the world, and J Bruhn (NeXT p/b Enshored) for the men, currently ranked second on ZwiftPower.

The Team USA roster is as follows:

Elite Men

Kevin Bouchard-Hall ( Velocio)

J Bruhn (NeXT p/b Enshored)

Joseph Chudyk (TURBO)

Matt Curbeau (Saris/ NoPinz)

Brian Duffy Jr (NeXT p/b Enshored)

Daniel Jamrozik (Restart Racing)

Ryan Larson (Saris/ NoPinz)

Zach Nehr (NeXT p/b Enshored)

Timothy Rugg (HTeam Skyline)

David Talbott 

Alex Tenelshof (TURBO)

Elite Women

Jacqueline Godbe (Saris/ NoPinz)

Kristen Kulchinsky (Team Twenty 24)

Liz Van Houweling (Saris/ NoPinz)

Courtney Nelson (Saris/ NoPinz)

Ellexi Snover (Electric Spirit Co.)

Morgan Uceny (Saris/ NoPinz)

Arielle Martin-Verhaaren (AEO)

Gyroor recalls 3,000 e-bikes due to fire hazard

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced that it's working with Chinese e-mobility device manufacturer, Gyroor, in recalling more than 3,000 Gyroor C3 e-bikes due to a fire hazard.

The model in question is the Gyroor C3 e-bikes, which contain battery packs that have been "posing fire and burn hazards."

The recall came about after Gyroor received reports of battery packs igniting and additional reports of injuries that required medical treatment, including burns to the consumer’s foot and smoke inhalation, the CPSC reports.

Often sold on Amazon, the C3 bikes are recognizable by a C3 logo printed on the seat tube and a serial number, printed on the frame just below the headlight, starting with 8330. 

Consumers are encouraged to stop using the battery packs on the C3 e-bikes immediately and contact Gyroor at 833-737-1294 or benson@gyroor.com for a repair in the form of a free replacement battery pack.  

Lithium-ion battery fires have been wreaking havoc in cities across the globe due to an abundance of cheap, poorly made products from disreputable sources that are sold via the internet, are often untested and do not adhere to any safety standards. 

The New York Fire Department alone reports that it has reported to at least 200 residential fires caused by e-mobility devices this year. The New York City Council is looking into curbing this deadly rise in e-bike and e-scooter related fires through a series of informational campaigns as well as banning the sale of both second-use and uncertified batteries. Apartment building owners have also begun banning e-bikes all-together. 

If  you own an e-bike, always follow the manufacturer’s instructions for charging and storage and use the manufacturer’s cord and power adapter made specifically for the device.

When purchasing devices, you can check to see if the product was tested for safety by looking for the internationally recognized Underwriters Laboratories Mark of approval. These products will carry an embossed or otherwise visible UL mark. 

It's also always a good idea to not leave your charging devices unattended or on the charger for an extended time. 

Lizzie Deignan is pregnant and will miss the 2022 season, her team Trek-Segafredo announced on Wednesday.

The Paris-Roubaix winner and former world champion is expecting her second child with her husband Phil, and said that it was an "emotional but logical decision".

The 33-year old will return to racing in 2023 with Trek, and has signed an extension to her contract which means she will keep racing until at least 2024.

Deignan missed the 2018 season during her first pregnancy with her daughter Orla, and returned to racing in 2019, winning the Women's Tour. Her partner Phil is a former Irish professional cyclist who last rode for Team Sky.

In a statement released by Trek-Segafredo on Wednesday, the rider from Yorkshire said: "Obviously having a baby is a big decision, but it wasn’t a difficult one for us. We’ve always wanted to have a big family and I think the time is right to have another child.

“Orla is ready for a sibling, I feel like I am established and able in my career to make the next step to have another child and everything behind the scenes fell into place. All the logical stuff like having a settled team and settled where we live was all really good. It was an emotional, but logical decision to make our family bigger.”

The news will undoubtedly weaken Trek in a big year for women's cycling, with the first Tour de France Femmes on the horizon, but Deignan made it clear that they have given her "complete support".

“It’s been quite an emotional experience, actually. Talking with Trek and telling them about my pregnancy, they gave me their complete support,” she said. “I first told Ina, my Sports Director, and her immediate response was ‘That’s f***ing awesome, congratulations!’ That took me back, really. 

"It meant so much to me personally to have that support. I’m a professional athlete in a professional cycling team, but the support feels very personal and I’m incredibly grateful.”

Deignan won the first edition of Paris-Roubaix Femmes in October, and has won pretty much all the biggest women's races, from the Women's Tour to Liège-Bastogne-Liège, via La Course. She said that she still has "plenty to give", hence extending her contract with Trek.

“I feel like I still have plenty to give from an athletic standpoint. For me, it was always obvious that if we were able to have another baby then I would still return to cycling,” Deignan said. 

“I never expected to continue my career through not just one, but two pregnancies, but actually there’s been so many examples now of successful women returning to the sport, and especially older women returning to the sport. I don’t think the same stereotype of athletes retiring at 30 in their prime is necessarily true anymore.”

Deignan is not the only British cyclist to take a break from cycling due to pregnancy, with Elinor Barker and Dame Sarah Storey also doing similar.

She said that she would draw on her previous experience to return to cycling after having her second child.

“Having been through the journey of having a baby and returning to the sport, I’ve realised that it is possible, and physically it’s actually easier than I expected," Deignan said. "It’s obviously demanding and challenging on your body but it’s certainly not limiting, so that was a huge surprise after having Orla, and something that helps my decision in coming back after another baby. 

"It’s the stuff around it; the family life balance that sometimes is difficult to manage, but I also think that we’re at the point now, three years after having Orla, that we know what we’re doing and we feel like we can manage more, and we actually enjoy that.”

The news also means that she will miss this year's Commonwealth Games, as well as the first Tour.

She has previously said that the inaugural editions will be a "massive goal" for everyone, she said. "Not just the individual riders but the teams and the sponsors. They're expecting a lot there so we have to plan a bit differently."

"I don’t think there’s ever a perfect time to have a baby," she explained on Wednesday. "Just like there’s never a perfect time to retire or to have an injury. There’s so many things in sport that might make you miss an event, and for me it’s the Tour de France Femmes and the Commonwealth Games this year. 

"Next year it could be the first ever women’s Milan-Sanremo, and that would be an amazing thing to take part in. I’m able to see past what I’ll miss. I’ll be there watching the girls and I’ll be right behind them. I know I’ll be envious at some points too, but it’s worth it.”

With cancellations and rescheduled races, the 2021 Women’s WorldTour season was another truncated by COVID, but that didn’t stop the series bringing us some exciting racing. Here we’ve picked six of the most exciting and interesting days, spread between March and October, proof, if it were needed of another vintage year. 

Oxyclean Classic Brugge - De Panne, March 25

We all love a bit of crosswind action, right? With its pan flat coastal roads and mid-March place on the calendar, we can more or less guarantee that’s what we will get at Brugge - De Panne. And this year’s race didn’t disappoint.

One of the longest races on the calendar, no sooner had the peloton rolled out of Brugge than a couple of riders were up the road, but they, and other small moves were never allowed any space, and the whole bunch entered De Moeren - an especially windy section of flatlands - as one.

The second time through here SDWorx put the race in the gutter, and only 12 women emerged into a tail wind section. With a number of teams represented with more than one rider, the group worked well, and such was the chaos behind they were never likely to be caught.

On her own in the leading group Grace Brown (BikeExchange) knew she wouldn’t out sprint the likes of Kirsten Wild (Ceratizit-WNT), Lotte Kopecky (Liv Racing) and Jolien D’hoore (SDWorx) so, with 10km to go she attacked hard.

While the group looked around to see who would chase, the Australian soon had a gap. But, in what was a hugely tense final, the Australian’s that lead was never more than 25 seconds, and it tumbled as sprinters’ team mates went to work. In the end though, Brown hung on, winning by just seven seconds.

Amstel Gold Race, April 17

The pandemic made sure this year’s Amstel Gold Race was like no other, with the entire race happening on the local circuit around Valkenburg, close to the Dutch city of Maastricht.

Though two riders escaped early on the first of seven laps, the race soon descended into chaos, as a group of 20 caught the leaders the second time up the Bemelerberg. This break didn’t last long though, Anna van der Breggen (SDWorx) bridging with Grace Brown.

After the race re-formed there was a brief period of calm, only for Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) to attack on the race’s signature climb, the Cauberg, with just over two laps to go. Wearing her European champion’s jersey Van Vleuten was unable to get a gap and it was Grace Brown and Pauliena Rooijakkers (Liv Racing) who emerged, the pair staying together onto the final circuit.

The Dutch rider was dropped on a descent, and with a lead of 30 seconds it seemed Brown might pull off a second solo win. However, desperate work from both Trek-Segafredo and SDWorx brought the Australian to within touching distance as the final ascent of the Cauberg loomed. 

In what was a dramatic final 2000m, Brown was caught by a rampant Van Vleuten, but Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) never her let her get away, and with Trek-Segafredo’s Elisa Longo Borghini caught her and rode off into a winning position.

However, in an odd twist, when Niewiadoma brought back an attack by the Italian the latter refused to work, and despite the polish woman’s imploring the pair were caught with only 300m remaining, and a 10 woman sprint was on the cards.

Marianne Vos knew she was the fastest sprinter in the group, going clear and raising her hands early in celebration, only for her smile of joy to fade for an anxious moment after SDWorx’s Demi Vollering pushed her close, Vos eventually winning by a tiny margin.

Liège-Bastogne-Liège, April 25

Since its inception in 2017 the women’s Liège-Bastogne-Liège has always provided entertaining racing, though many were unaware as the early editions were not televised. With good coverage this year we witnessed a masterful team victory and a changing of the guard at the top of the sport.

With an early break caught, SDWorx sparked a dynamic race, sending riders up the road and making their way into a number of breakaways. And it was the Dutch team’s then world champion Anna van der Breggen who made the race with a scintillating attack on the Côte de la Roche aux Faucons.

Marianne Vos has never won Liège and missed the group of six created by the rainbow jersey, but worked hard to get back on, though just as she did Van der Breggen went again, creating a five woman group which would contest the win.

Van der Breggen led the group for every one of the closing 13km, selflessly leading out team mate Demi Vollering, who capped off a stunning team performance winning the first of four WorldTour victories in 2021, and placing a hand on SDWorx leader’s baton for the first time.

Stage four, Vuelta a Burgos Feminas, May 23

Head to head battles between Annemiek van Vleuten and Anna van der Breggen, come around once a year at best, and they are invariably enthralling. Adept in the mountains and against the clock, the Dutch pair have similar skillsets and have been the most dominant women of recent years.

This year’s clash of the titans came on the fourth and final day of the season’s first WorldTour stage race, the Vuelta a Burgos Feminas, on the final ascent to Lagunas de Neila.  

Van der Breggen began the day sixth on GC, two seconds behind overall leader and team mate, Niamh Fisher-Black, indeed SDWorx had four women in the top eight, with Van Vleuten just behind, only five seconds off the lead.

SDWorx set the pace on the final climb, chasing a huge breakaway which began to fall apart, though two women remained ahead inside the final two kilometres. After Demi Vollering brought the final two escapees back, she was dropped leaving the two Dutch masters alone into the final 500m, with then world champion Van der Breggen resolutely stuck to the front.

Van Vleuten seemed to be struggling, and her task was made more difficult as the road curved round to the left and her rival, still looking strong, stuck to the nearside barrier, forcing her compatriot to take the long way round.

When the Movistar rider finally made her move Van der Breggen had time to respond and easily out sprinted the older woman, taking the stage and adding another GC title to her impressive palmarès.

Stage 4, Simac Ladies Tour, August 28

Over its 23 editions the Simac Ladies Tour has consistently defied the somewhat uninspiring Dutch terrain and served up a dish of gnarly, entertaining racing, and this year’s penultimate stage was one of gloriously entertaining chaos.

After a stunning time trial Marlen Reusser (Alé-BTC Ljubljana) led the GC by 10 seconds from Chantal van den Broek-Blaak, and it was the SDWorx rider who kicked off the chaos. The former world champion escaped with Ellen van Dijk (Trek-Segafredo), the two Dutch women building a small gap.

Short of team mates Reusser was very much on the back foot, but chased them back only for Anousker Koster to get away alone. With their teams controlling, then reducing the advantage, Van den Broek-Blaak and Kasia Niewiadoma bridged across when the gap was small enough, taking Koster’s Jumbo-Visma team mate Marianne Vos with them.

Even with Marta Bastianelli now there to help, Reusser could not close the gap, but was given  hope when a counter attack brought the leaders within touching distance, making for a nail biting final.

However, the leaders were three of the best and even had time to finesse. Niewiadoma attacked early on the dig to the line, however, no one was likely to match Vos and she took the stage by two seconds, while Van den Broek-Blaak put 21 seconds into Reusser, taking third on the day and the GC.

Paris Roubaix Femmes, October 2

After years of waiting, grasping at every tiny hint of progress, the women’s Paris-Roubaix was finally announced as part of the rejigged 2020 WorldTour calendar. Anticipation was further increased when the pandemic caused its cancellation. Twice. But in October it finally happened. 

And what a race.

At only 116km some it was too short, but it was hugely entertaining, despite not a lot happening for the opening 30 kilometres. On the first cobbled sector, more than 80km from the famous velodrome, Lizzie Deignan, staying safe at the front, found herself with a gap, and taking her opportunity, she forged on alone.

What followed was a masterclass on many levels. Each time someone chased, one of Deignan’s Trek-Segafredo team mates was there too. Despite crashes they infiltrated every group, causing it to falter. Meanwhile at the front the Brit ploughed on.

Only inside the final 20km was Marianne Vos able to break the Trek-Segafredo stranglehold, attacking and taking chunks out of Deignan’s lead. But it was not to be, as Roubaix grew closer, Vos began to falter and her deficit began to grow. Eventually, Deignan won by 1.17, one of the best rides you are ever likely to see earning her a place in history.

The Tour de France Femmes will be a "great watch" due to its "dynamic" racing compared to the men's version, Lizzie Deignan has said. 

Speaking from Trek-Segafredo training camp on Tuesday, the Paris-Roubaix champion explained that the first edition of the Tour Femmes has been "really well designed".

"I really like the stages, the dynamic aspect of it," she said. "I think there is something for everybody. I think that it will be a really great watch after something like the men's Tour. 

"With these super-teams like Jumbo or UAE, there will be a certain amount of control [in the men's Tour], and probably an inevitable yellow jersey at the end of it. In the women's race it will be quite dynamic in comparison to that and quite interesting."

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The Tour de France Femmes will be the first time that race organiser ASO has put together a female Tour de France, although various guises of a similar race ran between 1984 and 2009.

The race will begin in Paris on the same day as the men's Tour finishes, and will end eight stages later with a summit finish on the Super Planche des Belles Filles.

Research based on last year's World Championship road race showed that women's racing was just as popular as men's racing on television in the Netherlands. The Metro newspaper reported: "An average of 358,000 people tuned into the women’s race on Saturday, representing a 30 per cent market share, compared with 338,000 for the men on Sunday, which translates to a 15.5 per cent share."

Deignan said that she believes a three-week Tour for women should be the end goal, saying that "there's no reason why not", but that it is good to start somewhere with the eight-stage edition.

"I think it's important that there are stepping stones and we don't just go boom straight into a three-week Tour de France," the British rider said.

"Any change that happens needs to be sustainable, and I think in recent years there has been a good progression in women's cycling. Sometimes you need to push the boundaries so the teams catch up, so it is a difficult balancing act. But at the moment I think the scales are balanced."

The one thing that needs to be looked at, according to the former world champion, is the gap between junior and elite levels, with no formal under-23 level existing for women, unlike men.

She said: "In the future I think the thing that needs to be looked at is developing the jump from junior to elite, so that we do have that beginner pool of athletes to sustain a full calendar. Things like the U23 world championships are going to help that, but there still needs to be more races for the under 23 women coming through."

Deignan is in Trek-Segafredo's provisional squad for the inaugural Tour de France Femmes, but she explained that she still is unclear on her role for it just yet.

"The Tour de France is huge, but it depends a lot on the team dynamic and what the expectations of me are, and I don't know that yet," she said. 

"I'm keen to know what the team wants from me because I could say 'the Tour is a huge goal', but it might be a huge goal of Elisa [Longo Borghini]'s or Ellen [van Dijk]'s, and I need to fall in line. I need to pick areas where I am going to go for myself and also areas where I need to be a good teammate."

The Tour will be a "massive goal" for everyone, she said. "Not just the individual riders but the teams and the sponsors. They're expecting a lot there so we have to plan a bit differently."

One race that she does want to target is the Amstel Gold Race, one of the few big races that Deignan has not previously won. Her palmarés includes the Tour of Flanders, the World Championships, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and now Paris Roubaix.

"I’d like to focus on Amstel Gold and the Ardennes Classics. I’ve still not won Amstel, so it would be nice to tick that one off."

Lizzie Deignan says that her outstanding Paris-Roubaix victory was not the plan at the start of the day, which the Brit proceeded to lead for the majority of the race, over every cobbled section, and cross the finish line Roubaix velodrome alone, the first women to ever do so.

Instead, the Trek-Segafredo rider says she was merely trying to ride on the front heading into the first cobbled section in order to protect her two team leaders but turned around saw she had a gap, so just ploughed on.

"That was really not the plan," Deignan said after the finish. "I needed to be at the front of the first cobbled section to protect my leaders, I was the third leader.

"I looked behind after the first cobbles and there was a gap so I thought at least if I'm in the front they have to chase me and so I kept going."

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Deignan did keep going, stretching her advantage out to more than two and a half minutes, and never letting Marianne Vos within a minute of her after the Dutchwoman countered in the closing kilometres.

After gritting her teeth to keep the pace high after dealing with the final cobbled sectors, Deignan only allowed herself a smile as she took the bell for the final lap inside the velodrome, pumping her fist twice in celebration as she came around the final bend to make cycling history.

"I just feel so incredibly proud," Deignan said. "Women’s cycling is at this turning point and today is part of history. We’re so grateful to everyone behind the scenes, and every fan watching this is also making history, it’s proving there’s the appetite for women’s cycling and the athletes can do this toughest race and I'm proud I can say I'm the first-ever winner.

"I’m so proud that this is where we are, that women’s cycling is on the world stage.”

"Nobody can say that they've not had time to get prepared for this race," says Lizzie Deignan of the first-ever women's edition of Paris-Roubaix. Having initially been announced in May 2020 to take place on October 25, it was then cancelled by Covid, then moved again from its spring 2021 slot. And now, it's finally here.

"It's been talked about more and more, it's been hyped up for so long now that we really need to deliver a good race," Deignan continues. "I think it will be a spectacle. I mean, everyone wants to watch Roubaix. Everyone wants to sit down on their sofa and watch it. I'm just so grateful that I get to be a part of that...show, I suppose. I'm just excited about it as almost like a fan doing a race. It's a bit weird, really."

On Saturday October 2, cycling history will be made when the women's peloton finally take on the Hell of the North, with Deignan saying that 125 years after the inaugural edition of the men's race, the women will now also be a part of cycling's story.

"It's huge, it means that from now on women's cycling will be a part of cycling history," the Brit said. "It has to start somewhere - and I think in the last few years we've seen a huge amount of progression - but now we've got this iconic, tough race, which is not normally associated stereotypically with women's cycling, wrongly, obviously. 

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"But this is kind of the final step to prove that that's nonsense, it's irrelevant, and it's just about bike racing."

Deignan says that for her this one is bigger than the other Classics, the one she sits down to watch on television more than others.

"We've had Amstel, Liège and things like that added to the calendar but in terms of personal memories of sitting down to watch a bike race I've sat down and watched more Roubaixs than I have Lièges or Amstels," she said.

"I'm genuinely excited about this one," she continued of whether there were any nerves. "I think it's such a fight to get into those cobble sections so obviously it's a little bit more dangerous than some other races. But you know there's no huge climb that I'm scared about getting dropped on or whatever. It's just going to be like such a fun race to be a part of."

And what about other races, what other 'Big Ones' would she like to see the women's peloton take on next?

"Milan San Remo," comes the almost instant answer. "We did have one years ago, actually my team-mate Trixi Worrack won the last one. So they've done it before, so why not again?"

The Tokyo Olympics will no-doubt be a highlight of the cycling season for British fans, with riders competing across the road, time trial, track, BMX, and mountain bike disciplines - here is the full Team GB cycling squad for the games. 

As the delayed 2020 Olympics are scheduled to get underway on Friday (July 23), British Cycling and Team GB represented by star names like Geraint Thomas, Lizzie Diegnan, and Tom Pidcock. 

On June 21, national governing body British Cycling revealed the 26 names from 14 disciplines who will compete in Japan this summer, with GB represented by a mixture of experienced Olympians and debutants. 

Cycling events in Tokyo start with the men's road race on Saturday, July 24 followed by the women's road road the following day. 

Check out the full list of timings for cycling events here.  

The road race teams will be stacked with WorldTour talent like Deignan (Trek-Segafredo) and 2018 Tour de France winner Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers), while the track team will feature a selection of Olympic gold medallists. 

British Cycling performance director Stephen Park said: “I am incredibly excited by the squad we have selected to represent Team GB in Tokyo, and there will be plenty for British cycling fans to cheer for during the Olympic Games. 

“We have six Olympic Champions bolstering our squad, with Geraint Thomas, Ed Clancy, Jason Kenny, Laura Kenny, Elinor Barker and Katie Archibald all very driven to add more medals to their palmarès.

“At the other end of the spectrum, we pride ourselves on the strength of our pathway, and this is evident in the team we have selected with recent Academy graduates making our Olympic team. Josie Knight, Ethan Vernon and Anna Shackley have seized every opportunity this additional year has given them and it will be testament to the work of our pathway programme to see them on the start line in Tokyo.” 

In the men’s road race, Team GB have four riders competing in Thomas, Tao Geoghegan Hart, along with Simon and Adam Yates. 

In the men’s time trial, British hopes will lie with Geoghegan Hart and Thomas.

On the women’s side of the competition, Lizzie Deignan and Anna Shackley will fly the Union Jack, with Shackley also racing the TT. 

Tom Pidcock will be making his Olympic debut in the mountain bike event, while Evie Richards will also be racing the MTB. 

Both the men’s and women’s track squads will feature some of the biggest British names, including Katie Archibald, Laura Kenny, Elinor Barker, Ed Clancy and Jason Kenny. 

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Park added: “We are renowned for our domination in the track events and, while we have a realistic expectation that the rest of the world will be more competitive than ever this year, I am still extremely excited to see every single member of the track squad in the hunt for a medal in Tokyo.”  

Full Team GB squad for the Tokyo Olympics 

Men's road race 

Tao Geoghegan Hart
Geraint Thomas
Adam Yates
Simon Yates

Men's TT

Tao Geoghegan Hart
Geraint Thomas

Women's road race 

Lizzie Deignan
Anna Shackley

Women's TT 

Anna Shackley

Men's MTB

Tom Pidcock

Women's MTB 

Evie Richards

Men's BMX SX 

Kye Whyte
Ross Cullen (travelling reserve)

Women's BMX SX

Beth Shriever

Men's BMX Freestyle Park 

Declan Brooks
James Jones (travelling reserve)

Women's BMX Freestyle Park 

Charlotte Worthington

Men's endurance 

Ed Clancy
Ethan Hayter
Ethan Vernon
Matt Walls
Ollie Wood
Charlie Tanfield (travelling reserve)

Women's endurance 

Katie Archibald
Elinor Barker
Neah Evans
Laura Kenny
Josie Knight

Women's sprint

Katy Marchant

Men's sprint

Jack Carlin
Jason Kenny
Ryan Owens 

Coryn Rivera won a two woman sprint to take the final stage of the Giro Donne on Sunday. The American reacted to an early sprint from Lizzie Deignan, catching the Brit on the line to take DSM’s third stage of the race.

Former Swiss champion Elise Chabbey (Canyon-SRAM) was third, just ahead of Anna van der Breggen who won her fourth Giro Donne general classification in the year she retires from competition.

The four women were what remained of a five rider group which had formed early on during the 113km stage in Italy’s far north-east. They worked well together all day, Deignan’s Trek-Segafredo team mate Lucinda Brand dropping back after securing the mountains classification.

With Brand gone her compatriot Van der Breggen sat on, while Chabbey and especially Rivera did much of the work to hold off a reduced bunch. Deignan launched early, around 500m out, and it seemed as though she would hold on, but Rivera crossed the line around 10cm ahead.

After finishing second in the opening stage team time trial, Van der Breggen and her SDWorx team have dominated the 10 days. The Dutchwoman took the race lead with a virtuoso performance on the second stage mountain top finish at Prato Nevoso, and with team mates Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio finishing second and Demi Vollering third the final GC was set.

Indeed, as if to drive their superiority home, the same three women took the three top spots on Saturday’s other mountain top finishing at Monte Matajur. 

As for Deignan she was thrown into the GC battle after Trek-Segafredo team-mate, Elisa Longo Borghini had a disastrous day at Prato Nevoso, the team switching strategy to support the Brit and take her to her best Giro result.

How it happened

Nothing is easy at the Giro Donne and Sunday’s final stage certainly wasn’t. Only 113km, the route between Capriva del Friuli and Cormòns contained four classified climbs the first and the toughest coming only 14km into the day.

Taking on a large loop with two climbs, the race covered two smaller ones, each of 36km and each with other classified climbs, the route invited attacking racing.

And the attacking began early, first with Erica Magnaldi (Ceratizit-WNT) trying to reclaim her best Italian rider’s maglia azzura, but when she was caught a group of overall favourites went away on the day’s second climb.

Overall leader Anna van der Breggen (SDWorx) was joined by Elise Chabbey (Canyon-SRAM), Coryn Rivera (DSM) and the Trek-Segafredo pair of Lizzie Deignan, who began the day fourth overall, and Lucinda Brand who led the queen of the mountains competition.

This group soon had a lead of one minute, Brand taking maximum points on the second climb as a group of 10 more riders closed in on the leaders, with the peloton still 60 seconds back. Those 10 chasers did not make the catch however, the leaders extending their lead to more than two minutes with less than 50km to go.

Just a few kilometres later on the ascent to the third climb of the day, the gap had shrunk to less than a minute, and it seemed they would be caught.

However, he leaders seemed undecided on whether they wanted to take the day, and despite Van der Breggen not working, their gap began to head upwards once again, while only three teams pulled at the head of a reduced peloton.

Even when Brand was dropped the final time up the climb at Ruttars and Liv Racing’s Sofia Bertizzolo attacked the peloton, the gap stubbornly remained more that 50 seconds, Rivera doing huge turns when they were most under threat.

However, when SDWorx came to the front of the peloton disrupting the chase it was certain the leaders would take the day.

After the Giro was relegated from the WorldTour last year, reports on the ground suggest organisation is improved and “less chaotic.” However, the TV coverage has often lacked, with only the final few kilometres available, and 4G issues meaning there were no live pictures from Saturday’s queen stage.

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The race is currently on the 2022 WorldTour calendar, and with UCI President David Lappartient’s brother Jerôme the president of the race commissaires the UCI are bound to have an accurate report on the Giro’s improvements.

Giro d’Italia Donne, stage 10: Capriva del Friuli - Cormòns (113km)

1. Coryn Rivera (USA) DSM in 2-56-40
2. Lizzie Deignan (Gbr) Trek-Segafredo at same time 
3. Elise Chabbey (Sui) Canyon-SRAM at 03 sec
4. Anna van der Breggen (Ned) SDWorx at same tie 
5. Emma Norsgaard (Den) Movistar at 23 sec
6. Liane Lippert (Ger) DSM 
7. Ilaria Sanguinetti (Ita) Valcar Travel and Service
8. Anouska Koster (Ned) Jumbo-Visma
9. Sofia Bertizzolo (Ita) Liv Racing
10. Alexis Ryan (USA) Canyon-SRAM all at same time 

Final general classification

1. Anna van der Breggen (Ned) SDWorx in 27-00-55
2. Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (RSA) SDWorx at 1-43
3. Demi Vollering (Ned) SDWorx at 3-25
4. Lizzie Deignan (Gbr) Trek-Segafredo at 6-39
5. Mavi Garcia (Esp) Alé-BTC Ljubljana at 8-26
6. Marta Cavalli (Ita) FDJ-Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope at 8-29
7. Juliette Labous (Fra) DSM at 8-40
8. Tatiana Guderzo (Ita) Alé-BTC Ljubljana at 9-12
9. Niamh Fisher-Black (NZ) SDWorx at 9-44
10. Elise Chabbey (Sui) Canyon-SRAM at 10-42

Former US road champion Ruth Winder has taken the overall lead of the re-branded Giro Donne after her Trek-Segafredo team won the opening stage team time trial in Cuneo on Friday. 

The American squad won the opening stage time trial of the Giro Rosa last year and repeated the feat despite having issues with uneven pacing. Only when Lizzie Deignan signalled to her rest of the team was the issue solved.

They were in charge of the race throughout, clocking the fastest time at the intermediate time check. SDWorx were just behind them at that check, and it stayed that way, the Dutch team finishing the race just over eight seconds in arrears.

In third place, 39 seconds down, Alé-BTC Ljubljana were the surprise package, benefitting form the addition of Swiss powerhouse Marlen Reusser, who joined after finishing second at the world time trial championship last year. 

BikeExchange and FDJ-Nouvelle Aquitaine-Futuroscope are the biggest losers, Amanda Spratt’s Australian team losing 1-32. The French outfit is led by Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig who was fourth last year on the back of a similar performance in the team time trial, and the Dane would have been hoping for a better time this year.

Though the gaps are bigger, the top two is a repeat of last year’s result setting up a battle in the mountains which is set to begin on stage two.

Saturday’s second stage remains in the north west, the peloton taking on 2,000m of climbing over the 100km course, finishing at the ski resort of Prato Nevoso, 1607m above sea level. The final 18km ascend 1,133m at an average of 6 per cent, with a maximum of 13 per cent, ensuring the general classification will begin to take shape early in the race.

How it happened

Under new organisers, though with many of the same staff running actual the racing, the longest stage race on the women’s calendar has been rebranded to its original name, the Giro d’Italia Donne.

As it has done since 2017 the race began with a team time trial, this time in Italian north-west, in the foothills of the Alps, between the Piemontese towns of Fossano and Cuneo.

The mainly straight route dragged uphill for most of its 26.7km, with a few roundabouts and a coupe of steeper digs coming towards the finish in the centre of Cuneo, which as hosted stages of the men’s Giro and even the Tour de France, as well the Giro Donne in 2008.

The first of the 24 teams down the ramp was Isolmant-Premac-Vittoria, including Noemi Eremita, at 18 years 307 days, the youngest woman in the race. The Italian squad clocked 36-29, a time which some other more established teams were unable to match. 

However, when BePink clocked 35-51 they set off a series of fastest times which culminated with Ceratizit-WNT setting a time of 34-59. The German squad are a strong outfit, with former world time trial champion Lisa Brennauer among their number, but it was Alé-BTC Ljubljana who set the standard, clocking 34-20.

Winner of last year’s opening time trial, Trek-Segafredo suffered when Lizzie Deignan suffered a mechanical, the team losing one of its real engines. However, even without her they took 39 seconds out of the Italian squad, stopping the clock in 33.41, with only Movistar and SDWorx left on the road.

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Movistar were without their star turn Annemiek van Vleuten, the Dutch woman missing the race to concentrate on Olympic preparations, and were unable to challenge.

Giro d’Italia Donne, stage one: Fossano - Cuneo (26.7km, team time trial)

1. Trek-Segafredo (USA) 33-40
2. SDWorx (Ned) at 08 sec
3. Alé-BTC Ljubljana at 40 sec
4. Canyon-SRAM (Ger) at 45 sec
5. Movistar (Esp) at 55 sec
6. Jumbo-Visma (Ned) at 1-15
7. Ceratizit-WNT (Ger) at 1-18
8. Tibco-Silicon Valley Bank at 1-19
9. DSM at 1-23
10. BikeExchange at 1-32

General classification after stage one 

1. Ruth Winder (USA) Trek-Segafredo in 33-40
2. Ellen van Dijk (Ned) Trek-Segafredo
3. Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita) Trek-Segafredo
4. Lizzie Deignan (Gbr) Trek-Segafredo all at same time 
5. Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (RSA) SDWorx at 8 sec
6. Demi Vollering (Ned) SDWorx
7. Anna van der Breggen (Ned) SDWorx
8. Niamh Fisher-Black (NZ) SDWorx
9. Elena Cecchini (Ita) SDworx all at same time 
10. Mavi Garcia (Esp) Alé-BTC Ljubljana at 40 sec

Lizzie Deignan returned to winning ways at the Tour de Suisse on Sunday, finishing in the bunch to take the general classification by one second.

Having admitted she messed up the sprint on Saturday’s stage one, Deignan was back to her predatory best in Frauenfeld, constantly well-positioned and alert, directing her Trek-Segafredo team to neutralise any threats.

The American squad were consummate, riders taking turns to mark attacks so that Deignan could harvest maximum time bonuses from two early intermediate sprints. Then, with the virtual overall lead in their hands with 32km to go, they sat back and left the work to the Canyon-SRAM squad of overnight leader Elise Chabbey, who finished second overall.

The stage was won by Marta Bastianelli (Alé-BTC Ljubljana), the former world champion executing a perfect sprint from a nine woman breakaway which had formed around 25km out.

With the peloton closing in, Tereza Neumanova (Burgos Women) opened her sprint early, but Bastianelli slipped easily onto her wheel, passing her to win her first race of the year with a roar.

Former British road and time trial champion Hannah Barnes (Canyon-SRAM) was third on the day.

How it happened    

For the race’s second and final stage the Tour Suisse Women remained in Frauenfeld, though this time the peloton took on a flat 97km route consisting of 10 laps around the north-eastern Swiss town.

With the general classification so tight at the start of the race, bonus seconds would prove key, and make for an exciting race. It was Deignan who struck the first blow, winning the first of three intermediate sprints and the attendant three seconds.

This took her to within one second of overnight race leader, Swiss champion Elise Chabbey (Canyon-SRAM) who suffered a minor crash on the approach to the prime, and the event was set for a grandstand finish.

Though the race was still together going into the final 50km, Chabbey’s team repeatedly tried to form a breakaway in order to deny Deignan the opportunity to close in further on the race lead. It was here that Trek-Segafredo’s team came to the fore, closing down anything that moved.

The second sprint came with 38.6km to go, and while that was won by Chabbey’s American team-mate Alexis Ryan, Deignan took two seconds, and the virtual overall lead after a strong lead-out from her team. 

With the balance now shifted it became the responsibility of Canyon-SRAM to mark any attempted breakaways which might take the remaining maximum 13 bonus seconds. 

And they came, one after the other, Trek-Segafredo only chasing when Canyon-SRAM sent New Zealander Mikayla Harvey, who started the day 50 seconds down, up the road.

With less than 30km remaining two women finally got away, Katia Ragusa (AR Monex) making contact with Eugénie Duval (FDJ-Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope) the pair only gaining a tenuous lead of 12 seconds. 

Both women began the day more than six minutes off the overall lead so were no threat, but with other lower placed teams looking for their own interests, they were brought back, only for another group to go.

Duval went again and this time was joined by former world champion Marta Bastianelli (Alé-BTC Ljubljana), Lara Vieceli (Ceratizit-WNT), Alice Maria Arzuffi (Valcar Travel and Service), Tereza Neumanova (Burgos), Nina Buysman (Parkhotel Valkenburg), Linda Indergand (Switzerland) and Chabbey’s Canyon-SRAM team-mate Hannah Barnes.

With her team chasing behind, Barnes soft-pedalled and the group were unable to gain any great traction, though they led by 12 seconds over the day’s final intermediate sprint, putting the GC result on the day’s finish line.

Halfway around the final lap, Canyon-SRAM sent Harvey away again and when she was caught even Chabbey tried her luck a couple of times, but such was Trek-Segafredo’s strength that neither were able to get more than a few metres lead.

With just three kilometres to go, Ragusa bridged to the front group, but they were able to resist the clutches of the peloton and contested the stage, Bastianelli taking the win.

Result

Tour de Suisse Women, stage two - Frauenfeld - Frauenfeld (97km)    

1. Marta Bastianelli (Ita) Alé-BTC Ljubljana in 2-13-31
2. Tereza Neumanova (Cze) Burgos Women 
3. Hannah Barnes (Gbr) Canyon-SRAM
4. Linda Indergrand (Sui) Switzerland
5. Eugénie Duval (Fra) FDJ-Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope
6. Lara Vieceli (Ita) Ceratizit-WNT
7. Nina Buysman (Ned)  Parkhotel Valkenburg
8. Katia Ragusa (Ita) AR Monex
9. Alice Maria Arzuffi (Ita) Valcar Travel and Service all at same time 
10. Clara Copponi (Ita) FDJ-Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope at six sec.

Final general classification    

1. Lizzie Deignan (Gbr) Trek-Segafredo in 5-14-48
2. Elise Chabbey (Sui) Canyon-SRAM, at one second
3. Marlen Reusser (Sui) Alé-BTC Ljubljana, at 34s
4. Jolanda Neff (Sui) Switzerland, at 44s
5. Mikayla Harvey (NZ) Canyon-SRAM, at 51s
6. Lucinda Brand (Ned) Trek-Segafredo, at 4-31
7. Letizia Borghesi (Ita) Aromitalia-Basso Bikes-Vaiano, at 4-36
8. Tatiana Guderzo (Ita) Alé-BTC Ljubljana 
9. Erica Magnaldi (Ita) Ceratizit-WNT
10. Sina Frei (Sui) Switzerland, all at same time 

The 2022 Women’s WorldTour has been announced and not only are there more days than ever, but there will also be more top tier women’s racing in the UK.

Next year’s highest level of international racing will consist of a total of 67 days, with the UK hosting a six-day Women’s Tour and three days allocated for RideLondon.

This is a significant increase in WorldTour race days, the previous highest number was 52 in the last pre-pandemic season, 2019. That same year there were seven days in the UK, with the one-day RideLondon Classique and the first six-stage Women’s Tour.

The most notable addition to the calendar is an eight-stage Tour de France Femmes, which will begin on Sunday July 24, the final day of the men’s race. However, despite race organisers ASO recently telling Cyclingnews La Course by Le Tour de France would continue, it is not included in the calendar.

Of the British races, while the Women’s Tour has always been a stage race RideLondon is traditionally a one-day event, the peloton previously tackling a criterium around central London. A stage race solely in the capital is both highly improbable and it remains to be seen what form the event will take, though should it venture out into the Home Counties that will surely preclude the Women’s Tour visiting South-East England, especially as the two are only seven days apart

The series begins with Strade Bianche on March 5 and, as has always been the case the vast majority of the WorldTour is in Europe. Indeed, with the omission of Australia’s Cadel Evans Great Road Race only the three day Tour of Chongming Island near Shanghai, is anywhere other than the sport’s heartland.

A notable returnee is the race formerly known as the Giro Rosa which has reverted to the title Giro d’Italia Donne. After being ejected from the WorldTour after being unable to fulfil the criteria set by the UCI for top tier events, most notably live TV coverage, the new management has clearly assured the powers that be it can comply with the requisite regulations.

The Italian race will stay at its traditional 10 days at the start of July, creating a level of fixture congestion not before seen in the Women’s WorldTour.

In the 114 days between the start of Itzulia Women on May 13 and the end of the Simac Ladies Tour (listed on the UCI website by its old name of Boels Ladies Tour) there are 49 days of WorldTour racing in eight different countries. 

Though this is obviously dwarfed by men’s races, this year’s nine Women’s WorldTeams only have an average of 13.2 riders each. And with all those outfits required to send teams - normally of six women - to all WorldTour races, that period will be a very busy time for riders and staff alike.

However, with more WorldTour teams due to be created next season, and an exponential increase in coverage, budgets and squad sizes may well help facilitate the increased commitment.

However, this increase in those commitments begs the question what will happen to ProSeries and lower-level races, as without top teams and their big names these events may struggle to attract the funding required to continue.

Along with Itzulia, the inaugural edition of which was slated for this year but cancelled because of the world health situation, there is a further new stage race with Battle of the North set to replace the four-day Ladies Tour of Norway.

The original aim was to run a 10-day event, but with organisers of the two Swedish races in Vårgårda unwilling to join in it will be restricted to six stages, visiting Denmark and Norway with one stage dipping into Sweden. 

Lizzie Deignan said she’s comfortable with her abilities on the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix, but added she was surprised by how physically demanding they are.

The former world champion joined her Trek-Segafredo team-mates to recon the iconic pavé sectors of northern France,  ahead of the first ever women’s Paris-Roubaix next month. 

For the first time, the women’s peloton will be racing 116 kilometres over the hallowed cycling ground, taking on 17 cobbled sectors, before finishing in the famed Roubaix velodrome. 

On Sunday (February 28) Trek-Segafredo hit the farm tracks to prepare for the race on April 11, with Deignan sharing her first impressions. 

The 32-year-old said: “I was pleasantly surprised. The biggest thing to take away from it for me was that physically it’s just so difficult. Skilfully I’m comfortable, I’m happy on the cobbles.

“But physically it’s going to be one of the most demanding races.” 

Deignan added: “It’s different to what I expected. 

“Physically it’s more draining than I expected to ride on the cobbles for that long, but I feel like I’m skilful enough to handle those cobbles, which I was a little bit worried about.” 

A women’s Paris-Roubaix has been a long-awaited addition to the pro calendar and was met with huge excitement from riders and fans when it was announced by the UCI last year.

The race is expected to attract the biggest talents from the women’s peloton, and while the start list is yet to be confirmed, Deignan will be among the stars targeting the race. 

Reacting to the announcement of a Paris-Roubaix Femmes last May, Deignan said: “Obviously this is an amazing surprise, I’m really delighted! I think Paris-Roubaix is an iconic race, one of the races that attracts most fans in cycling and if we can attract those same fans to women’s cycling, I think it’s a really positive thing."

The first women's Paris-Roubaix was scheduled to take place in late 2020, but had to be delayed by a year as the event was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

>>> Wout Van Aert has been smashing Strava times on Tenerife, but team say he’s still not at his best for Strade Bianche  

Former world champion Annemiek van Vleuten also said: “The most surprising news is the Paris-Roubaix for women. I always said I will only quit when they will first organise a Paris-Roubaix for women and finally they will have… but I’m not going to quit yet!” 

The Classics are back, kicking off this weekend with Omloop Het Nieuwsblad - here’s how you can live stream the Flemish one-day race.

In 2020, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne were the only prestigious Classics races that went ahead before the global coronavirus pandemic put a halt to the cycling season.

This year, the much-anticipated Belgian events will kickstart the string of spring one-day races and we’ll see some big names competing.

The 2021 Omloop Het Nieuwsblad takes place on Saturday, February 27 with both the men and women racing.

This year we’ll see Annemiek van Vleuten return to defend her title, this time in Movistar colours, while Trek-Segafredo’s Lizzie Deignan will also be lining up.

In the men’s race, world champion Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck - Quick-Step) will make his debut in the race, while Greg Van Avermaet (Ag2r-Citroën) and Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) will also be racing.

After some initial uncertainty around the broadcast rights for the race, particularly in the UK, there are now multiple options for watching the event.

Here are all the ways you can live stream Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2021:

Watch Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2021 in the UK

There was some concern for British cycling fans leading up to the first cobbled Classic of the year, as regular cycling broadcasters GCN and Eurosport had been unable to obtain rights to show the racing.

Luckily, just three days before the race, GCN and Eurosport announced they had been able to broker a last-minute deal with the race organiser to obtain the rights to show the race.

Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2021 will now be broadcast on both GCN and Eurosport on Saturday.

The women’s race will be live on GCN+ and Eurosport from 2.40pm to 4.40pm, while the men’s race will be shown from 1pm to 4.40pm.

To gain access to Eurosport coverage you can subscribe to the Eurosport Player app for £39.99 a year or £6.99 per month.

Access to the GCN Race Pass costs £39.99 a year, with a special launch offer of £19.99 for the year currently available.

Not at home for Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2021? No worries – just download and install a VPN and choose your location to watch live as if you were back home. Full instructions below.

You may find access to your favourite home broadcaster is restricted by location. Luckily there is a way you can keep watching anyway – downloading and installing a VPN, which allows you to trick your computer into thinking it’s back at home. This allows you to find your native broadcaster coverage without having to resort to an illegal steam, as long as you stick to the terms and conditions set out by the broadcaster.

Setting up a VPN is simple – just download, install, open the app and select your location.

Try out ExpressVPN  for its speed, security and simplicity to use. We also like that it’s compatible with so many devices and streaming services (e.g. Amazon Fire TV Stick, Apple TV, Xbox, PS4, etc).

There are other great options out there of course, but Express VPN gives you the added benefit of a 30-day money back guarantee and three months free with a yearly plan.

Live stream Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2021 from the USA, Canada and Australia

Omloop Het Nieuwsblad will be available to watch in the USA, Canada and Australia thanks to FloBikes, which will have live coverage from both the men’s and women’s races.

Coverage from the men’s race will start at 8am EST and finish at around 10.30am, with the women’s race being shown from 10.37am EST and finishing around 11.40am.

>>> Riders react to the Giro d’Italia 2021 route, including Remco Evenepoel, Peter Sagan and Egan Bernal 

To watch Flo Bikes you’ll need a subscription to view (plans start from $12.50 a month).

Watch Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2021 in Europe

If you’re a cycling fan living in mainland Europe, there are a few options available for you to watch Omloop Het Nieuwsblad.

Firstly, GCN and Eurosport will have exclusive broadcast rights to the racing across most of Europe, except for Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg where the racing will be live non-exclusively.

The action will also be shown live on Sporza and RTBF in Belgium, L’Equipe in France and NOS in the Netherlands.

“Lizzie you need to go to the podium!” crackled Trek-Segafredo’s race radio after the women’s Tour of Flanders.

At the top of the Women’s WorldTour rider classification, Lizzie Deignan was due to be awarded the leader’s jersey, but at Flanders this was more of a problem than normal.

Having been in the second group after the Kruisberg, the 2016 race winner felt unwell and abandoned, deciding to make her way to the finish by the quickest possible route.

“I found a bike path that went to Oudenaarde, but the bike path ended on the wrong side of the river and a bridge started to go up in front of me,” Deignan laughs. “So I was stood in my race kit, freezing cold with a load of commuters laughing at me and waiting for the bridge to go back down so I could get to the podium.

“I shouldn’t have started really. I got quite sick after Ghent-Wevelgem, but I thought I’d give it one last push to help Elisa after all the help she’s given me, but I was fairly useless.”

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It was an anticlimactic end to an excellent season for Deignan. After a few false starts with illness and crashes, for more than five weeks between the end of August and the start of October Deignan was - once again - the best one day racer in the world. 

Her record third win at GP Plouay saw the Yorkshirewoman break Annemiek van Vleuten’s (Mitchelton-Scott) six-race winning streak, and in Nice the following week she pipped Marianne Vos (CCC-Liv) on the line to win La Course.

Then, after Anna van der Breggen’s (Boels-Dolmans) prodigious run of victories, from the Giro Rosa through road and time trial world titles and a sixth consecutive Flèche Wallonne, Deignan broke another Dutch stranglehold, winning at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

With the peloton wearily dispersed at the close of the abridged season, 31 year-old Deignan can look back at more than those three top level victories. There was also victory at the Giro Rosa team time trial, six top 10 finishes, including sixth place at the World Championships, and that WorldTour classification. All from 21 race days. Not a bad return.

“I was delighted with it,” Deignan says of her year. “It was a very mixed bag, I felt like I was crashing or I was ill or I was winning, so it was a strange season for lots of different reasons, but I was happy with it.

“I’m definitely better than I’ve ever been physically, but it’s a different ball game since I was dominating in 2016. I can look at my power files between now and 2016 and I’m as strong if not stronger than I was then, but I’m not winning every race I enter, which I think is a good thing, women’s cycling is really developing year on year.”

The season’s standout squad, Trek-Segafredo, have incredible strength in depth and were key to the Brit’s success, though it wasn’t all about her.

They began in January, US road champion Ruth Winder winning a stage and the GC at the Santos Women’s Tour Down Under. Later there were national titles for Elisa Longo-Borghini, Anna Plichta and Audrey Cordon-Ragot, who also took a stage at the Tour de l’Ardeche. The team’s five WorldTour victories were the most of any other squad.

“It was very clear from our manager, Luca Guercilena, at our first get together in December that it was about winning. I remember on the bus before Strade Bianche he said, 'I have no interest in any of you coming second or third, or top 10, we need to win'.

“It’s quite an interesting situation for your manager to say they’re not interested in podiums, they’re only interested in winning, it kind of makes your tactics very aggressive and very fearless and as soon as that started to work the ball was rolling, and I think once you’ve won one race it’s easier to win more.”

Longo Borghini bagged the team’s other WorldTour road victory, was instrumental in each of Deignan’s successes, and the pair have built a productive partnership since joining forces when the team was created at the beginning of 2019. Their relationship first paid off when the Brit won stage five at last year’s Ovo Energy Women’s Tour, and has blossomed since.

“She is a fearless competitor and an incredibly interesting person, on and off the bike,” Deignan says of the Italian. “We get on very well and I’m just inspired by her passion for cycling, she’s phenomenal.”

“When I first got pregnant she was one one of the first professionals who contacted me, she said 'my mum [Olympic cross country skier, Guidana Dal Sasso] made a comeback and I know you can do it'. She reached out to me as a stranger, then on another team. We have a very good relationship and mutual respect, it works as well.”

It was Longo Borghini’s repeated counter attacking in the closing kilometres of La Course that set up Deignan’s favourite win. Though she appeared beaten, the Italian battled back, forcing Vos to open her sprint too early, allowing Deignan to take the win.

“It was the epitome of team work,” enthuses Deignan. “Often when you’re trying to express to family or friends that cycling is a team sport it’s quite difficult to explain, but there was no explanation needed if you watched La Course. 

“It was obviously very important for our team and our sponsors, so we had a lot of pressure and we performed.”

There is an argument to say Deignan has usurped Vos as the peloton’s most complete all-round rider. Though the Dutchwoman remains prolific, Deignan now out-climbs her rival, but remains quick enough to mix it in the bunch sprints, and, as we saw at La Course, from a small group she is devastating.

Having committed her future to Trek-Segafredo until the end of 2022, there’s also plenty more to come.

Elisa Balsamo won the final stage of the Ceratizit Challenge with a perfectly timed sprint in Madrid on Sunday. Her Valcar Travel and Service team came to the front in strength inside the final kilometre, dominating the road, and when Lorena Wiebes launched early the former junior world champion came off her wheel, crossing the line first.

Wiebes (Sunweb), who had expended a lot of energy trying to take bonus seconds at the plethora of intermediate sprints, held on for second, while Marta Bastianelli (Alé-BTC Ljubljana) took third place.

For the second year running, Lisa Brennauer, who was seventh on the stage, performed a tactical masterpiece, she and her Ceratizit-WNT team intelligently taking bonus seconds whenever possible, and defending the lead she had taken from Saturday’s stage two time trial.

The day was a long, frantic and fascinating tactical battle throughout, the format once again making what is essentially a criterium into a hugely exciting spectacle.

The last race of the women’s season, it was also the final race of the Women’s WorldTour, the individual prize for which was won by Brit Lizzie Deignan (Trek-Segafredo). Her three wins earlier in the season ensured her lead was unassailable, and she was absent from the three-day race.

How it happened

The 100.3km race around the centre of Madrid took in 17 laps of a pan flat 5.9km circuit, changed slightly this year to avoid a nearby shopping area.

While on the face of it, a crit through empty Madrid streets might seem no way to finish a three-day stage race, intermediate sprints every other lap had five, two and one bonus seconds awarded for the first three riders on each. With 15, 10 and five seconds available for the top three at the finish, historically the race is characterised by exciting and frantic racing.

What we got was a cagey start, with the Ceratizit-WNT squad of overall leader Lisa Brennauer leading the way. In close attendance though were Sunweb, whose stage one winner Lorena Wiebes was the best sprinter in the race, and were looking for the overall win.

After Wiebes pipped Brennauer in the first intermediate sprint, the race developed into a ding dong battle between the German - the wise old hand, and Wiebes - the young pretender. Next time round Brennauer changed tactics and followed her rival’s wheel to win the second sprint and restore her advantage.

In between the intermediate sprints other teams would take the lead, desperately trying to form a breakaway which Sunweb would close down each time. Of those, Mitchelton-Scott were particularly active, with their former British champion Jess Roberts off the front alone, taking the third intermediate sprint before being caught.

After the fourth intermediate two former time trial world champions, Ellen van Dijk (Trek-Segafredo) and Annemiek van Vleuten (Mitchelton-Scott) forced a move of six women off the front, and when they were caught Elisa Longo Borghini had a go.

The Italian started the day only 10 seconds down on GC and, as the national road and time trial champion, as well as one of the world’s top riders, certainly had the class to threaten the overall.

With Longo Borghini off the front, the action in the peloton eased, and while Brennauer continued to take bonus seconds, Wiebes seemed unable to, her deficit increasing as each intermediate passed, and it seemed she was keeping her powder dry for the stage win.

With the race entering the closing laps inside the final 15k, other teams appeared at the front and the Italian’s advantage shrunk rapidly and she was caught two kilometres later.

Even in the closing two laps the attacks didn't stop, though by then a bunch sprint was inevitable and, with two kilometres to go Valcar Travel and Service team appeared near the front, before stretching the race under the flamme rouge.

Result

Ceratizit Challenge by la Vuelta: stage three, Madrid - Madrid (100.3km)

1. Elisa Balsamo (Ita) Valcar Travel and Service, in 2-16-49

2. Lorena Wiebes (Ned) Sunweb

3. Marta Bastianelli (Ita) Alé-BTC Ljubljana

4. Chiara Consonni (Ita) Valcar Travel and Service

5. Silvia Zanardi (Ita) BePink

6. Barbara Guarischi (Ita) Movistar

7. Lisa Brennauer (Ger) Ceratizit-WNT

8. Sandra Alonso (Esp) Casa Dorada

9. Jelena Erić (Ser) Movistar

10. Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita) Trek-Segafredo, all at same time

Final general classification

1. Lisa Brennauer (Ger) Ceratizit-WNT, in 4-29-21

2. Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita) Trek-Segafredo, at 12 seconds

3. Lorena Wiebes (Ned) Sunweb, at 13s

4. Ellen van Dijk (Ned) Trek-Segafredo, at 31s

5. Leah Kirchmann (Can) Sunweb, at 42s

6. Annemiek van Vleuten (Ned) Mitchelton-Scott, at 44s

7. Sarah Roy (Aus) Mitchelton-Scott, at 46s

8. Maaike Booogaard (Ned) Alé-BTC Ljubljana, at 52s

9. Alice Barnes (Gbr) Canyon-SRAM, at same time

10. Mieke Kröger (Ger) Hitec Products, at 57s

Jolien D’hoore won a stunning edition of Ghent-Wevelgem on Sunday, beating Belgian compatriot Lotte Kopecky in another thrilling Women’s WorldTour race in Belgium. 

The two Belgians had been part of an 11 woman breakaway which had formed on the day’s final climb, the Kemmelberg 35km from the line. Despite D’hoore having her Boels-Dolmans team-mate Amy Pieters in there, and Trek-Segafredo having three women, cooperation in the group was excellent right into the final.

>>> Mads Pedersen takes victory in hard-fought Ghent-Wevelgem 2020

With Sunweb, Canyon-SRAM and CCC-Liv working in the chasing group, the closing 25km were as tense as could be, the gap less than 10 seconds as they entered the final kilometre.

Pieters launched her sprint at around 500m, drawing out Belgian national champion Kopecky (Lotto-Soudal) while D’hoore sat in, opening her sprint and coming over her compatriot in the final 50m.

Lizzie Deignan was the first Brit home, finishing on the same time in eighth place, and continues to lead the Women’s WorldTour individual standings, with just three events remaining.

How it happened

With pandemic restrictions across Belgium and organisers imploring fans to stay away, the peloton rolled out of Ypres, through the Menin Gate in eery silence, except for the wind blowing across the flat lands from the North Sea.

The 141km route first headed north into a headwind, but it didn’t take long for attacks to come, with Tibco-Silicon Valley Bank’s Emily Newson making a move, but though she was joined by four others they were soon caught.

With less than 10km ridden American, Heidi Franz (Rally Cycling) attacked, but though she was soon joined by three more, including British rider, Leah Dixon (Tibco-Silicon Valley Bank) they too were caught, the pace lifting as it headed towards a section of crosswinds.

With the race turning south, a tailwind not only kept the pace high, but also the peloton all together as they headed for seven, short sharp climbs, including two ascents each of the Monteberg and Kemmelberg.

Before they reached those bergs six riders headed up the road. Ann-Sophie Duyck (Parkhotel-Valkenburg), Cathalijne Hoolwerth (NXTG Racing), Shannon Malseed (Tibco-Silicon Valley Bank), Leigh Ann Ganazar, her Rally Cycling team mate Sara Poidevin, and British rider Lucy van der Haar (Hitec Products) built a lead of 30 seconds, but they were also caught, with 80km remaining.

Working for sprinter Lorena Wiebes, Sunweb led the way over the top and onto the second climb, the Vidaigneberg, but it was on the Baneberg where the pace began to take its toll, with the bunch splitting as they headed over the top.

Over the Kemmelberg for the first time and the race began to break up properly, some riders being dropped as the peloton headed to the Plugstreet sections of gravel roads, Trek-Segafredo now leading.

On a circuit which would take the race back to the Monteberg and Kemmelberg double, the speed went up and down, with various attempts to get away. The narrow ‘Plugstreets’ saw a flurry of action, what remained of the bunch once again stretched, but the peloton emerged largely intact.

While Monteberg was uneventful, the Kemmelberg proved decisive, the 11 woman group which would contest the win emerging, with three from Trek-Segafredo giving them the advantage.

Despite Boels-Dolmans being the only other team with more than one rider in the leading group the 11 women worked well, reaching the cobbles of Grote Maarkt in Ypres, and the final 25km with a lead of 37 seconds.

On the long road towards the finish in Wevelgem cooperation waxed and waned, and with Canyon-SRAM, Sunweb and CCC-Liv doing the work in the chasing group helped by a tailwind, they closed to within touching distance.

Whilst D’hoore is a prolific winner, and one of the best sprinters in the women’s peloton, the win will come as a relief. Not only is it the first of her season, she has not won since last year’s Women’s Tour, where she took two stages in an injury hit season. It is also her biggest victory on home soil, with the 2018 Three Days of De Panne her only other Belgian WorldTour victory.

Result

Ghent-Wevelgem in Flanders Fields Women: Ypres - Wevelgem (141.1km)

1. Jolien D’hoore (Bel) Boels-Dolmans, in 3-33-15

2. Lotte Kopecky (Bel) Lotto-Soudal

3. Lisa Brennauer (Ger) Ceratizit-WNT

4. Sarah Roy (Aus) Mitchelton-Scott

5. Marta Cavalli (Ita) Valcar Travel and Service

6. Lauren Stephens (USA) Tibco-Silicon Valley Bank

7. Demi Vollering (Ned) Parkhotel-Valkenburg

8. Lizzie Deignan (Gbr) Trek-Segafredo, all at same time

9. Amy Pieters (Ned) Boels-Dolmans, at 5 sec

10. Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita) Trek-Seagfredo, at 8 sec

Lizzie Deignan's attack on La Redoute hadn't been planned on the team bus before Liège-Bastogne-Liège, but the way she pulled off her impressive 30km solo victory you wouldn't be blamed for thinking it had been.

The British rider was part of a nine woman breakaway but attacked on the Côte de la Redoute, riding alone to the line in Liège as team-mate Ellen van Dijk marked their rivals in the chase group behind.

"I think the nicest thing about this team is we're allowed to race on instinct and not to fear failure," Deignan said after the finish. "And actually I thought 'you know what I need to be over La Redoute before Anna, Annemiek and Elisa', I thought it was the best thing I can do to get over it first, so I just raced on instinct.

"It was Ellen who said to me: ‘Lizzie, you have to go on La Redoute’, and I did, and didn’t look back, and I won."

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Deignan wins La Doyenne on her third participation, the race only having existed for the women's peloton since 2017, and she betters her runner-up place that year with the top step of the podium in what has been a great run of form for the Trek-Segafredo rider.

"It's pretty special, we've been waiting to win a Classic like this and I think we've been almost there so many times," Deignan explained. "It's special to win a Classic, it's the first kind of really big win I've had [since coming back] so I'm really happy."

In the closing kilometres Deignan managed to avoid the clutches of Mitchelton-Scott's Grace Brown, the Australian detaching from the chase group with 16km and getting within nine seconds of the Brit.

"Horrible, really horrible," Deignan says of knowing that Brown was breathing down her neck on the run-in to the finish. "In the end, I decided to try and chase the motorbikes in front of me rather than think about her behind me because mentally it's just wrecking you if you think like that. I knew she would descend faster than me, I knew she had that advantage, so I was just praying the line would come quicker.

"[I knew I had won] In the last 500 meters. It was really close, she was coming up really hot behind me and I knew how good of a time trialist she is and I was getting more and more legless."

Lizzie Deignan has picked up a number of impressive wins since racing returned after lockdown, starting with GP de Plouay and then taking the La Course title back in August.

Lizzie Deignan took the third win of her season, winning an enthralling edition Liège-Bastogne-Liège in a breathtaking, tense solo move.

The Brit rider had been part of a nine woman breakaway but attacked with 30km on the Côte de la Redoute, riding alone to the line in Liège.

With team mate Ellen van Dijk one of the eight chasers and disrupting any counter-attacks, her advantage seemed secure with her lead over one minute. However, at the bottom of the Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons, with 16km to go, Grace Brown (Mitchelton-Scott) countered, reducing the gap to only 35 seconds as she crested the top.

Even on the descent Brown continued to close the gap as Deignan appeared to tire, but as they entered the outskirts of Liège the gap remained stubbornly around 20 seconds. In the final five kilometres the gap came down to 10 seconds and it looked as though a two woman sprint would decide the day.

But Deignan was able to hold her advantage, Brown crossing the line nine seconds down, with the Van Dijk taking third after attacking the chasers in the final kilometre.

It was a good day for the Brits, with Hannah Barnes (Canyon-SRAM) part of the day's breakaway and finishing sixth, 2.21 behind Deignan.

How it happened

Despite its one off autumn place on the calendar, weather for this year’s race was remarkably similar to 2019, with cold rain and a tailwind behind the peloton as they left Bastogne for the 135km to Liège.

Heading north towards the first of five classified climbs, the bunch huddled together no one going clear despite the cold, with the favourites’ teams leading the way, the course heading from the open fields into the trees and climbs.

As the race hit the first of those, the Côte de Wanne, with 56km ridden, the pace lifted, the peloton a huge seven minutes ahead of the fastest projected schedule, the pace far too high for any of the speculative attacks to make any progress.

However, a brief lull saw nine women escape the bunch, building a lead of one minute as they began to climb the second classified ascent, the Côte de la Vecquée, just inside the closing 50km.

Brit Hannah Barnes was joined by compatriot Deignan, her Trek-Segafredo mate Ellen van Dijk, Marianne Vos (CCC-Liv), Katrine Aalerud Movistar), Marlen Reusser (Equipe Paule Ka), Juliette Labous (Sunweb), Grace Brown (Mitchelton-Scott) and Amy Pieters (Boels-Dolmans). 

With so many of the best teams represented in the break it was left to FDJ-Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope and Parkhotel-Velkenburg to chase, and as the leaders hit the penultimate climb the Côte de la Redoute they led the peloton by 1.17.

Here though, as the gradient began to bite, the race entering its closing 30km, Deignan attacked the leading group, while behind the peloton shattered, another small group heading off the front, led by Demi Vollering (Parkhotel-Valkenburg), who finished third last year.

Deignan crested the race’s signature climb with a lead of 30 seconds on the original break, and 1.30 on Vollering’s group which was down to just four women as they began descending.

With Van Dijk in the group behind and Elisa Longo Borghini with Vollering, Trek-Segafredo were in a perfect position though, as the kilometres ticked away Deignan’s advantage grew to 55 seconds as she entered the final 20km.

With the peloton out of the race, now well over two minutes down, the chase group began attacking each other, with Reusser making the first move which Van Dijk instantly shut down. However, the ascent of the Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons was the perfect place for Brown to make her move, with the Australian the more accomplished climber.

The first three editions of the race had all been won by Dutchwomen and Deignan's victory not only ends that streak, but returns the British rider to the top of the Women’s WorldTour individual standings, with just five events remaining.

Result

Liège-Bastogne-Liège: Bastogne - Liège (135km)

1. Lizzie Deignan (Gbr) Trek-Segafredo in 3-29-48

2. Grace Brown (Aus) Mitchelton-Scott at 9 sec

3. Ellen van Dijk (Ned) Trek-Segafredo at 2-19

4. Marianne Vos (Ned) CCC-Liv

5. Amy Pieters (Ned) Boels-Dolmans all at same time

6. Hannah Barnes (Gbr) Canyon-SRAM at 2-21

7. Marlen Reusser (Sui) Equipe Paule Ka

8. Juliette Labous (Fra) Sunweb all at same time

9. Katrine Aalerud (Nor) Movistar at 2-26

10. Liane Lippert (Ger) Sunweb at 3-26

Elisa Longo Borghini took the overall lead of the 2020 Giro Rosa after Trek-Segafredo won the opening stage team time trial.

The team covered the 16.8km course around the Tuscan town of Grosseto in 20-05, with Boels-Dolmans second three seconds back. and Mitchelton-Scott third a further two seconds down.

First across the line for Trek at the conclusion of the pan flat course was Italian time trial champion, Elisa Longo Borghini, who will wear the maglia rosa on stage two for the first of eight road stages.

The team have been flying in recent weeks, with Lizzie Deignan winning the last two Women’s WorldTour races at GP Plouay and La Course. The Brit was happy to acknowledge Longo Borghini’s part in both those successes, saying how she was looking forward to helping her team mate in the nine day Giro.

Though she has finished second on GC and worn the best Italian jersey on multiple occasions, this was Longo-Borghini’s first maglia rosa, though she refused to take any credit, putting the victory down the the strength of her team.

How it happened

First down the start ramp, new Spanish team Casa Dorado were the early leaders, setting a time of 22-25-56 over the course, though they were toppled by Top Girls Fassa Bortolo.

First of the WorldTeams to start was Movistar, and as was expected they smashed the old leading time, clocking 21-37, despite a strengthening wind and the threat of rain, on what was an incredibly humid day near the Mediterranean coast.

Though not a WorldTeam Equipe Paule Ka, including Brit Lizzy Banks, for a while looked like they may take the win. Their time of 20-15 was too much for former world champions Canyon-SRAM and Marianne Vos’s incredibly strong CCC-Liv squad were unable to match it either.

However, three of the last four teams down the ramp were the strongest, with only five seconds separating them the leading trio of squads.

With two classified climbs and over 3,100m of climbing in the foothills of the Apennines, defending the jersey on Saturday’s 124.8km stage two between Paganico and Arcidosso will be a challenge for Trek-Segafredo, despite their undoubted strength.

Result
Giro d’Italia Internazionale Femminile, stage one: Grosseto - Grosseto (16.8km) team time trial

1. Trek-Segafredo in 20-05-99

2. Boels-Dolmans at 3 sec

3. Mitchelton-Scott at 5 sec

4. Equipe Paule Ka at 9 sec

5. Sunweb at 13 sec

6. Canyon-SRAM at 16 sec

7. CCC-Liv at 41 sec

8. Ceratizit-WNT at 42 sec

9. Alé-BTC Ljubljana at 48 sec

10. Valcar Travel and Service at 50 sec

General classification after stage one

1. Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita) Trek-Segafredo at 20-05

2. Ruth Winder (USA) Trek-Segafredo

3. Ellen van Dijk (Ned) Trek-Segafredo

4. Lizzie Deignan (Gbr) Trek-Segafredo all at same time

5. Chantal van den Broek-Blaak (Ned) Boels-Dolmans at 3 sec

6. Amy Pieters (Ned) Boels-Dolmans

7. Jolien D'hoore (Bel) Boels-Dolmans

8. Anna van der Breggen (Ned) Boels-Dolmans

9. Karol-Ann Canuel (Can) Boels-Dolmans

10. Eva Buurman (Ned) Boels-Dolmans all at same time

The swiftly re-arranged World Championships are just a few weeks away and the Great Britain women’s team has been confirmed. 

After the Worlds in Switzerland were canceled due to coronavirus regulations, the UCI was forced to find a new venue in a short space of time, with Imola in Italy later being announced as the new host. 

Taking place from September 24 to September 27, the Imola Worlds will still feature a tough climbing course similar to the one planned for Switzerland.

Lizzie Deignan will be leading the women’s road race team, as she has been on remarkable form in recent weeks with victory in the GP Plouay and La Course within the space of a few days. 

The former world champion will be supported by a strong cast of riders - Lizzy Banks, Alice and Hannah Barnes, Anna Henderson and Anna Shackley. 

British Cycling performance director Stephen Park said: “Based on what we know about the course, I am confident of a strong performance by our women’s team at this year’s road worlds.

“Despite being setback by a number of crashes this season, Lizzie is in brilliant form as we have seen in her recent victories in the UCI Women’s WorldTour events, and similarly it was fantastic to watch Lizzy Banks in the break away with Lizzie Deignan in the GP Plouay finishing in second place for a British one-two. I’m also really pleased to see academy rider Anna Shackley step into this elite squad, it will be a great development opportunity ahead of her turning professional in the new year.” 

In the elite women’s time trial, British hopes will be carried by Alice Barnes and Lizzy Banks.

This year’s Worlds will only feature the elite level races for both men and women, with the junior and under-23 events being held in 2021.  

Park said: “I know there is disappointment amongst our under-23 and junior riders who are unable to compete for a rainbow jersey this year, but this was the right decision for the UCI to make and they know their time will come.”

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He added: “It impresses me how the number of talented British female road riders we have to select from continues to grow year on year. While there is still work to be done, it demonstrates a big step forward in the rise of women’s cycling in this country.”

Great Britain Cycling Team women's squad for World Championships 2020

Elite Women’s Road Race 

Lizzy Banks

Alice Barnes

Hannah Barnes

Lizzie Deignan

Anna Henderson

Anna Shackley

Elite Women’s Time Trial

Lizzy Banks

Alice Barnes

Lizzie Deignan’s victory at La Course last Saturday finished a stunning week of women’s racing. She won a nail-biting edition GP Plouay the Tuesday before, and the Euros was equally gripping, all three making excellent adverts for women’s racing.

However, it was La Course which made the headlines, once again providing huge exposure for the women’s sport.

I’ve worked at all the European Women’s WorldTour races, and while those run alongside men’s events like Flanders and Liège-Bastogne-Liège attract some headlines, I can safely say La Course attracts more coverage than all the standalone women’s races put together.

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As always La Course this year brought the annual bout of indignation about the lack of a Tour de France from those who follow the women’s sport only for the one race, and accusations ASO has dragged its feet are entirely fair. 

When it was created in 2014, my first year working in the women’s sport, the event was touted as a precursor to a full stage race, however, while the event moved away from its Paris debut, nothing bigger materialised. 

Until now that is. Not only has UCI president David Lappartient mentioned the creation of a French multi-day race in recent days, more importantly, Tour organiser ASO has been hinting at it for a while. 

Details came in mid-August when Tour boss, Christian Prudhomme met with Les Donnons des Elles au Vélo, a group of women riding the route of the Tour to raise awareness of the lack of a women’s event. 

A tweet from Les Donnons’ sponsor, Pete Geyer of race livestream website cyclingfans.com failed to gain much traction.

As well as congratulating the women on their achievements and tenacious campaigning, Prudhomme confirmed the creation of a women’s Tour de France. He told them it would begin on the final day of the 2022 Tour and last for one week.

For anyone believing in justice and equality this is very welcome news. At last, the women’s peloton can properly take advantage of the world’s biggest race, and reap the benefits of the publicity that hopefully comes with it.

But there is continued criticism the new race is not coming soon enough, and even ludicrous suggestions they should have found space for a stage race in 2020’s reorganised calendar.

Ludicrous? 

Not only does the re-scheduled nine-day Giro Rosa begin on September 11, Tuesday this week should have seen the start of the six-day Boels Ladies Tour in the Netherlands. Organising a French stage race in the five weeks since the Dutch race was cancelled is unworkable. 

We complain when men’s WorldTour stage races overlap, but overlapping top tier women’s races is not possible when even the biggest teams lack the numbers to deal with a double programme. Of the eight newly created WorldTour teams, two have only 11 riders and the biggest, Canyon-SRAM has 16, so with six-woman race rosters it’s not going to happen.

So what about next year? Surely there’s time?

Possibly, however, COVID-19 has disrupted 2021 already, the re-scheduling of the Olympics throwing a spanner in the works, causing even the men’s Tour to change dates and postpone the proposed start in Copenhagen.

What’s more, other races will already have set dates and begun organising their events. Why should those who have been successfully run for years be forced aside at ASO’s whim?

Any new stage race must be properly integrated or risk disrupting what is a relatively structured season. The UCI will need to work with organisers to re-schedule dates, and the traditional Women’s WorldTour hiatus after the Giro Rosa is a perfect spot making the proposed date after the men’s race perfect. Except next year the Olympics will be in that spot.

ASO is a naturally conservative organisation and it will have weighed the pros and cons of staging a women’s Tour, and if Prudhomme and Lappartient are talking publicly about it they are highly unlikely to go back on their word.

When I watch the Tour I often think how, as boys the riders dreamt of competing for yellow as they raced their mates in the park. How they jabbered with enthusiasm, their parents patiently and sceptically listening to their boys’ aspirations.

It’s been a while coming, but now young girls can have that same dream.

Lizzie Deignan won a thrilling edition of La Course in Nice on Saturday, beating Marianne Vos into second place after a tight tactical sprint.

The win comes hot on the heels of her win GP Plouay, the most recent Women’s WorldTour race, last Tuesday, and puts her at the top of the rankings.

The British rider had been part of a six woman group which had formed early on second of two laps, and had Trek-Segafredo team mate Elisa Longo Borghini in the group to help.

With the peloton well out of contention, the six leaders rode onto the final straight of the Promenade des Anglais with time to finesse. With Deignan glued to Vos’s wheel Longo Borghini launched repeated attacks taking the pressure off her team mate.

World champion Annemiek van Vleuten also had a go, but was unable to get away. Entering the final kilometre Deignan appeared stranded on the front, but when Longo Borghini, who had been dropped after a previous dig, attacked past them Vos was forced to open her sprint early.

It looked as if the Dutch woman had done enough to win, but Deignan resolutely stuck with her, a desperate bike throw enough to give her the win.

After earlier appearing exhausted, Parkhotel-Valkenburg’s Demi Vollering crossed the line in third place.

How it happened

The 96km race took in two circuits which started with the ascent of the lap's only climb, Côte de Rimiez. After a couple of short-lived and speculative attacks, the race tackled the first ascent as one, though the lack of depth in the peloton was illustrated as riders were dropping out of the back throughout the ascent.

The climbing carried on after the summit, but it was the descent which drew out the first breakaway, with Christine Majerus (Boels-Dolmans), Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM), Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (FDJ-Nouvelle Aquitaine-Futuroscope), Lotte Koppecky (Lotto-Soudal), Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo) and Sunweb’s British rider Anna Henderson getting away.

As the six riders hit the flat road back to the coast they had a lead of 25 seconds on a group of about 30 riders, where many of the pre-race favourites were hiding. Of them it was Chloe Hosking’s Rally Cycling team who came to the front to lead the chase.

However, as the leaders headed back into Nice to complete the first lap the peloton swelled and the gap came down dramatically, catching the leaders with 52km remaining, before the first passage of the finish line.

Over the line and as the bunch began the second ascent of the climb world champion Annemiek van Vleuten (Mitchelton-Scott) launched one of her trademark blistering attacks, drawing out the group of six riders who would contest the final.

Though she led for the entire climb Van Vleuten was unable to drop the other five riders, Niewiadoma, Marianne Vos (CCC-Liv), Demi Vollering (Parkhotel-Valkenburg) and the Trek-Segafredo duo of Longo Borghini and Brit Lizzie Deignan sticking close to her wheel, and when they crested the climb they led by one minute, and even though more riders were by now in the peloton, the gap increased steadily.

Defending Liane Lippert’s overall lead in the WorldTour standings, Sunweb led the chase of a peloton which was steadily increasing in size, but even on the flat they were unable to reduce the leader’s advantage, despite help form Valcar Travel and Service.

By the time the leading six women passed Nice airport, riding onto the Promenade des Anglais they led the bunch by 1.45, allowing space for the tactical final.

Result 

La Course by Le Tour De France: Nice - Nice (96km)

1. Lizzie Deignan (GBr) Trek-Segafredo, in 2-22-51

2. Marianne Vos (Ned) CCC-Liv

3. Demi Vollering (Ned) Parkhotel-Valkenburg

4. Kasia Niewiadoma (Pol) Canyon-SRAM

5. Annemiek van Vleuten (Ned) Mitchelton-Scott, all at same time

6. Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita) Trek-Segafredo at 7 sec

7. Emilia Fahlin (Swe) FDJ-Nouvelle Aquitaine-Futuroscope at 1.50

8. Elisa Balsamo (Ita) Valcar Travel and Service

9. Soraya Paladin (Ita) CCC-Liv

10. Liane Lippert (Ger) Sunweb, all at same time