Cat Ferguson targets Tour de France Femmes debut in 2026: 'I’ve got to prove I’m an asset to the team'

Britain’s brightest talent Cat Ferguson is eyeing a Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift debut next year at the age of 20, having taken three wins in her first full year as a WorldTour professional.

The Movistar rider, who already counts five world titles across three disciplines on her palmarès, enjoyed an up-and-down 2025 season, with periods of good form interspersed by periods of overtraining and fatigue.

“I think the combination of my first altitude camps, not knowing my limits, having so much time to ride my bike, and the excitement of being a first year pro meant that I put myself into a hole,” she told CW. “I thought I could handle whatever and do a lot of training if I just fuelled more but that’s not the case and I went a bit too crazy.”

As she puts it, Ferguson “resurrected it a bit towards the end of the year” and won in her final race – a mountainous one-day race in southern Spain, an impressive result for a rider who has previously excelled on shorter, steeper climbs and flatter finishes. “That win proved to me that I can be more versatile than I previously thought, and that’s the rider I’d love to be,” she said.

Now, having already spent one winter training camp with Movistar preparing for the 2026 season, the Yorkshirewoman has set her sights on the biggest race of all. To get selected, though, she has to catch the eye of her team during June’s Giro d’Italia Women.

“Apart from Marlen [Reusser] and Liane [Lippert], everyone is a reserve. I’ll do the Giro before and however I do there will decide if I go to the Tour or not.

“The Giro is a big goal for me, and I hope I can improve to show that I’m good enough to go to the Tour as well because if so then that would become my main goal of the season.

“I’ve got to prove that I am one of the riders deserving of a place throughout the season, and show the team that I’m in good shape and that I can be an asset to them.”

Before the summer of stage racing, Ferguson’s first goals of the season will be the Classics. She opened her campaign last year with third place at Trofeo Alfredo Binda.

“I didn’t expect to make it around Binda so to finish third was a surprise,” she said. “I definitely came away from the spring thinking that the Italian races – including Milan-San Remo – suited me more than I thought they did beforehand.

“I’m hoping this year with a good winter’s training behind me I can go to the Classics more prepared than last year. They’re definitely the hardest races in terms of positioning, and they were incredibly difficult for me last year because they were the first races of the year.

“But I definitely think my positioning improved throughout the season, so if I go to the Classics with better physical ability and a bit of luck – because that’s a big part of the Classics – then hopefully I can do well. The Classics are super exciting and the real pinnacle of cycling.”

Ferguson’s best run of form in 2025 came during her home race, June’s Tour of Britain Women. She won one stage and the points classification as she finished second overall.

That said, she spoke of the season not “being great physically in terms of progression” due to the aforementioned fatigue.

“I definitely made the biggest improvements mentally, with all the experience and knowledge that I gained being bigger than I ever thought,” she said. “But I still have way, way more to learn and I’ll continue making mistakes. But the ones I’ve already made I 100% won’t do again.”

After a dominant junior career, Ferguson turned pro with Movistar in the autumn of 2024, and won two pro races for the Spanish team in just seven race days before the season’s end. She is rated by many as the natural heir to her idol, Lizzie Deignan.

“I’m really enjoying it – it’s just incredible,” Ferguson said of life as a pro. “I even just appreciate living in a different country [Spain] and having a two-year rental contract. I find it incredible I get to live here for another year, to get to do this as long as I make it.

“People ask what my long term career goal is, and honestly a big goal of mine is just to keep doing cycling. I want to do it as long as my body lets me. It’s another reason to take everything slowly so that I can have a long career as it’s my dream job.”