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.
