Latest news with #LidlTrek
BBC News
8 hours ago
- Sport
- BBC News
Roldan wins stage two as Faulkner takes overall lead
Canada's Mara Roldan won stage two of the Lloyd's Tour of Britain Women as Kristen Faulkner of the United States took the leader's green jersey. Roldan, 21, of Team Picnic-Post NL broke away with 14km to go on the short steep climbs into 19-year-old Cat Ferguson finished fifth for the second day in a row to move up to fourth in the general classification, just 14 seconds who rides for the Movistar World Tour team, and is considered one of the brightest talents in the sport, remains in the white young rider's jersey. Rolden finished the stage just ahead of pursuer Riejanne Markus of Lidl-Trek and a small group, including Ferguson, after the peloton split on the final circuit, which included the gruelling category one climbs on Saltburn road race champion Faulkner, of EF Education-Oatly, leads Markus by four seconds Tour of Britain winner Lizzie Deignan of Lidl-Trek is 16th - two minutes seven seconds down in the GC. Drama right from the off After just one kilometre of a frantic official start in sodden conditions at Hartlepool Docks, the green jersey wearer Kim le Court of AG Insurance-Soudal hit the tarmac with two other riders, and took several minutes to gingerly return to the peloton. Thursday's winner of stage one now sits 21st in the GC after finishing nearly three minutes down in Saltburn. There were several sketchy moments as the weather started to improve as the race moved down the coast, including a busy day for the British continental CJ O'Shea team, who experienced a bike change, and separate front and rear punctures for their riders.A miserable day was capped for AG Insurance-Soudal by the retirement of Gladys Verhulst-Wild of the Netherlands, who vaulted off her bike and landed deep in the undergrowth late in the stage following a high-speed downhill crash with Liv AlUla-Jayco's Josie Talbot of Australia. Stage two result1. Mara Roldan (Can/Team Picnic-PostNL) 2hrs 57mins 38secs2. Riejanne Markus (Ned/Lidl-Trek) +12secs3. Ally Wollaston (Aus/FDJ-Suez) +18secs4. Megan Jastrab (USA/Team Picnic-PostNL) Same time5. Cat Ferguson (GB/Movistar Team)6. Karlijn Swinkels (Ned/UAE-Team ADQ)7. Cecilie Uttrup-Ludwig (Den/Canyon Sram-Zondacrypto)8. Sarah Van Dam (Can/Ceratizit)9. Kristen Faulkner (USA/EF Education-Oatly)10, Quinty Ton (Ned/Liv AlUla-Jayco) +22secsGeneral classification after stage two1. Kristen Faulkner (USA/EF Education-Oatly) 4hrs 57mins 3secs2. Riejanne Markus (Ned/Lidl-Trek) +4secs3. Ally Wollaston (Aus/FDJ-Suez) +12secs4. Cat Ferguson (GB/Movistar Team) +14secs5. Karlijn Swinkels (Ned/UAE Team ADQ) +14secs6. Megan Jastrab (USA/Team Picnic-PostNL) +16secs7. Sarah Van Dam (Can/Ceratizit) Same time8. Cecilie Uttrup-Ludwig (Den/Canyon Sram-Zondacrypto)9. Quinty Ton (Ned/Liv AlUla-Jayco) +20secs10. Anna Henderson (GB/Lidl-Trek) Same time
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Lizzie Deignan ‘emotional' as she prepares for final race in Britain
An emotional Lizzie Deignan will end her years racing on home roads with a farewell appearance in the four-day Tour of Britain, which begins in Dalby Forest. 'I'm really pleased that the race starts in Yorkshire and finishes in Glasgow, because I've got amazing memories of my career there,' she said. 'I'm really excited about it.' The 36-year-old retires at the end of this season and described herself as 'incredibly emotional' over coming to the end of a career that included an Olympic silver medal at London 2012 and a Commonwealth Games gold medal in Glasgow in 2014, as well as victory in the first women's Paris-Roubaix and the world road race title in 2015. 'I realise how privileged I have been to do this for a career,' she said. 'I just feel lucky it's my choice that it's my last time, because not every athlete gets to do that. I know it's my last one going into every race this year, and I feel like I can make the most of it. It's really liberating.' Even with a British Grand Départ to the Tour de France Femmes confirmed for 2027, Deignan said she had 'definitely made the right decision' to quit the sport. Deignan, now with the Lidl-Trek team, has been a trailblazer as an elite endurance athlete who has juggled parenting and racing at the highest level, as well as being as an influential figure in the rapid growth of women's cycling. 'Half of the races that I've won weren't even on the calendar when I first started,' she said. 'I've grown up alongside the sport. When I started, everyone was racing just for passion.' If there is a natural heir to Deignan, it may be the 19-year-old Cat Ferguson, who is making her debut in the Tour of Britain, riding for Movistar. She was the revelation of last year's UCI World Road Championships, winning the junior time trial and road race. 'Cat's definitely got an amazing future,' Deignan said, 'and she is stepping into what is now a really professional sport. She has so many amazing opportunities and she will experience such a different level of professionalism compared to what we had. It's really exciting to see this next generation of British female riders.' Ferguson's first season racing at World Tour level has had its ups and downs, including a solid performance in her debut Grand Tour, the women's Vuelta, but also a heavy fall caused by a wandering spectator during April's Paris-Roubaix. 'That was my race over,' Ferguson said. 'There's been a lot of bad luck, alongside the good things. That's the reality of racing in the World Tour. Not every race goes your way and when it does go wrong, it's a lot harder to come back from.' Ferguson will be one of the headline names of a peloton that includes the Olympic road race champion, Kristen Faulkner, racing for EF Education-Oatly, and Anna Henderson, silver medallist in the time trial at the Paris Olympics and teammate to Deignan at Lidl-Trek. 'Out of all the races I've done this year, I'm really excited for this one,' Ferguson said. 'This a really competitive field and doing well is definitely one of my goals.' Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion If Sunday's circuit race in Glasgow will remind Deignan of her 2014 Commonwealth Games success, the opening couple of stages, from Dalby Forest to Redcar and Hartlepool to Saltburn-by-the-Sea, are more familiar to the Otley-born rider than some of her rivals. 'I know what to expect in terms of the conditions, and from British soggy, slow roads,' she said. 'I think I'll be at a bit of an advantage to some, although they're not quite my 'home' roads.' Rod Ellingworth, now in his second year as race director to the Tours of Britain, revealed that a different finish to the race to celebrate Deignan's career, had been under consideration. 'There were a few different ideas,' he said. 'Could we finish in Yorkshire for Lizzie?, for example. But you get a city like Glasgow coming in and they want it as a Festival of Cycling, so then, it's 'OK, this is the obvious choice.'' 'Ideally, you want to get to a point where you're not relying on local authority money, so then you can go to the right locations to run the race you want to, but unfortunately it's not as simple as that.' The race will be streamed live on BBC iPlayer and on TNT Sports.
The Independent
3 days ago
- Health
- The Independent
Lizzie Deignan ‘incredibly emotional' ahead of Tour of Britain farewell
Emotions will be running high for Lizzie Deignan at the Tour of Britain Women this week. After announcing in November that this would be her final season as a professional, Deignan has been saying her goodbyes at races all year. But it will mean a little more at her last event on British soil, a race she has won twice in its previous guise as the Women's Tour, and one that this year happens to start on home roads in Yorkshire. 'I'll feel incredibly emotional,' Deignan told the PA news agency. 'I've been there at the start of women's cycling when we were fighting just to be included at races. I grew up watching the men's Tour of Britain and there was no option for the women. 'Now I will be at the start line with however many WorldTour teams, all the WorldTour women from the UK representing cycling. I think it will just be a moment of reflection for me to think, gosh, how far we've come.' Deignan was on the start line for the first Women's Tour in 2014, won it in both 2016 and 2019, and will be racing it for an eighth time when the opening stage rolls out of Dalby Forest on Thursday. The 36-year-old first toyed with retirement back in 2020 before the Covid-19 pandemic forced the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics. Last year might also have been her last before she decided on 'one last dance' with Lidl-Trek this term. Part of what kept Deignan going was the expansion of the calendar as more of cycling's top races added women's editions. 'I think if I had retired any earlier than now I would have had regrets, definitely, sitting at home watching all these opportunities unfold,' Deignan said. 'I can be really proud and pleased with the last five, six years of my career where I've got to feel truly like a professional, to be respected and to have opportunities equal to the men.' The London 2012 silver medallist won a world title in 2015 but, as a youngster, could have never imagined she would go on to win Paris-Roubaix or Liege-Bastogne- Liege because those races did not launch women's events until 2021 and 2017 respectively. She said: 'When I first started I couldn't dream of winning Monuments because we only had the Tour of Flanders, that was the biggest dream and I won it (in 2016), but now we have Milan-San Remo, Liege and Roubaix, we're just missing Lombardy now. 'So my career and goals have evolved alongside the sport. It's been an amazing journey to go on.' That 2015 world title is, on paper, the greatest of Deignan's 43 professional victories, but the Otley-born rider ranks her 2020 Liege-Bastogne-Liege win and memorable Paris-Roubaix triumph in 2021 just as highly as both came after the birth of the first of her two children. 'I did both of those as a mother,' she said. 'Just managing all the expectations and balancing everything was an incredibly difficult thing to do. And I pulled it off. So that personally is what I'm most proud of.' Deignan does not yet know what retirement holds for her, other than being clear she will remain active in the sport that has given her so much. Ahead of the Tour of Britain, Deignan has partnered with the race sponsor Lloyds on a programme to promote participation in cycling for people of all ages by providing greater access to equipment and experiences, and she wants to keep giving back. 'I've done my competitive bit and I'm passionate about staying in the sport but in a different way,' Deignan said. 'It's really important that participation and inclusivity stays part of the sport. Cycling can do much good for people, for people's self-confidence, and for the community.'
New York Times
26-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Giro d'Italia week two: Can Mexico's starlet Del Toro hold pink jersey to Rome?
One week left — and a wide open battle (for everything but the ciclamino jersey). The Giro d'Italia is set up for dynamite in the Dolomites. Prodigious youngster Isaac del Toro, 21, is still in pink, he has a teammate chasing desperately, and there are a cabal of contenders in sight of the race lead. Advertisement Over recent stages, we've seen Lidl-Trek soar from glory to despair and back, the pre-race favourite seemingly slip from contention, and the tell-tale signs of intra-team rivalries. This is what we've learned from the Giro's second week — and what we have to come. Last Tuesday's damp time-trial did little to shake up the established order — instead, it was Saturday's innocuous stage 14 that turned the leaderboard into a game of snakes and ladders. With the race route slipping between Italy and Slovenia, the race favourites were clustered alongside the sprinters at the head of the peloton with 30 kilometers left. It had been drizzling throughout the day, and on a tight corner in the Slovenian town of Nova Gorica, down went Bahrain Victorious' Antonio Tiberi, who had been sitting third in the general classification (GC). Like any crash in the bunch, his fall caused a chain reaction. His fellow Italian, Lidl-Trek's Giulio Ciccone, fell hard on his right side. Initially looking like he would be forced to quit on the roadside, Ciccone eventually rolled in 16 minutes down — his team confirmed on Sunday morning that their climber was too injured to continue. Several riders were fortunate enough to avoid the pile-up, most significantly Del Toro, who leads the GC by 1.20. Other beneficiaries were Visma-Lease a Bike's Simon Yates (who moved up to 2nd) and EF Education's Richard Carapaz (up to fourth). However, a score of other contenders lost around 45 seconds on the Maglia Rosa — including teammate Juan Ayuso, pre-race favourite Primoz Roglic, and the dangerous Egan Bernal. Ayuso had been snapping at Del Toro's heels at around 30 seconds down — he is now 1.26 in arrears. As for Tiberi? Only Ciccone came off worse than the Bahrain Victorious rider — he came in 1.40 down on Del Toro. Now sitting seventh, more than three minutes down, his podium hopes look distant. The Giro's social media accounts are not averse to a little humour — so when INEOS Grenadiers' Thymen Arensman caught up with the Latin American attacking trio of Del Toro (Mexico), Bernal (Colombia) and Carapaz (Ecuador), the admin could not resist a wry joke. 'There are many things that I would like to say to you, but I don't speak Spanish,' they imagined Arensman saying, aping Oasis' Wonderwall. 🗣️ 'There are many things that I would like to say to you, but I don't speak Spanish' – Probably Thymen Arensman. #GirodItalia — Giro d'Italia (@giroditalia) May 25, 2025 But like all good humour, an undercurrent of truth lies beneath it. Del Toro, Carapaz, and Bernal have arguably been the three best pure climbers in the race. They animated stage 15 with their attacks on Monte Grappa and Enego, and sit first, fourth, and eighth. Carapaz has already won a stage, escaping on Castelnovo ne' Monti, while Bernal has shown his best form since winning the Giro in 2021 — only losing time on time-trials and in the stage 14 split — recovering from a near-fatal crash in 2023 in between. Advertisement It would not be strictly accurate to describe this as a breakout race for Latin American climbing talent — that undermines the significance of Colombians Lucho Herrera and Nairo Quintana. But this is the region's most dominant performance in a Grand Tour — and if Del Toro becomes the first Mexican rider to win a Grand Tour, who knows what new frontiers will open? In some ways, it is the perfect problem. In others, it threatens to cut a chasm through cycling's most dominant team. Ayuso confidently entered the Giro with the mantle of UAE's team leader, telling Spanish newspaper Marca that 'anything but top three would be a disappointment'. But that status was somewhat self-chosen, with UAE stating Ayuso was co-leader alongside Yates. In the event, Del Toro, initially selected as a super-domestique, took advantage of a fractured race situation in Tuscany on stage nine, taking the pink jersey. Despite his youth, the Mexican has scarcely set a foot wrong since, taking bonus seconds at will, positioning himself well, and even climbing well enough that he felt comfortable putting on a gilet mid-attack. Del Toro: 😎 Everyone else: 😰 The Maglia Rosa looked relaxed while his rivals were attacking on Monte Grappa on Stage 15 of the Giro d'Italia – and even found time to put a gilet on. 📸 Sprint Cycling _______ 🇮🇹 #GirodItalia — Velon CC (@VelonCC) May 25, 2025 It leaves UAE in an enviable but difficult tactical position, with Del Toro leading Ayuso by 1.26. There have already been signs of mixed messaging. The most obvious was when Del Toro appeared to deliberately gift bonus seconds to Ayuso on stage 14, prioritising his team-mate's race over his own, but others may have been more significant. For example, on both stages nine and 15, UAE have chased an escape group containing Del Toro hard. In trying to minimise Ayuso's losses, they spurned the opportunity for Del Toro to have an even larger lead. Advertisement Yet Del Toro has beaten Ayuso on the past three uphill finishes — at what point do UAE throw their weight behind the younger man as the lead rider? If he wins, Del Toro will become the youngest Giro winner since the legendary Fausto Coppi in 1940. Their strategy suggests they fear Del Toro, despite his huge potential in the mountains, will lose time in the third week. Another reading might imply UAE believe they can get both cyclists onto the podium. But what will happen if one rider slips back when the other wants support from team-mates to attack — who will get UAE's support? And, if this gap remains, how close to Rome will the race get before Del Toro is the team's unquestioned leader? It is the compelling question of the final week. Roglic entered the Giro as favourite — but has shipped small but significant amounts of time throughout the second week. He was caught up in a tangle with Tom Pidcock on the white roads of Tuscany last Sunday, and though he pulled back some time on Tuesday's time-trial, those seconds disappeared once again after falling with other leading contenders on stage 14. Most concerning, however, was his showing one day later — where he was dropped by Carapaz's acceleration on the slopes of Enego. Some 20 riders managed to stay in the group ahead of him — the Slovenian seemingly lacking any energy to haul himself back towards the leaders on the subsequent plateau. He has slipped from fifth to 10th, 3.53 behind Del Toro. Such gaps have been bridged before, but Roglic has not shown the form to give his fans any realistic hope. He thrives on surviving a high pace on long climbs — but lacking team-mates, and with riders such as Del Toro, Carapaz, and Ayuso looking far punchier, a podium finish looks like his best-case outcome. Will he finish the Giro? 'There is no point in hiding anymore that he doesn't feel well, that he's in pain,' Red Bull's directeur sportif Christian Pomer told The Cycling Podcast, referring to his crash injuries. 'We tried to downplay it a little, and it worked until today, but today we saw the truth.' Advertisement Roglic has publicly said that the Tour de France is his main target this season — the only Grand Tour he has never won — but he looks some way off race-winning form. His only solace may be in seeing this race as an extended training block — but three weeks in the legs and two crashes are hardly ideal preparation. Tadej Pogacar, resting up from his outstanding Monument season, spent his Sunday looking untroubled at the Monaco Grand Prix — on this month's evidence, Jonas Vingegaard will remain his prime challenger at the Tour. We spent the first week congratulating Lidl-Trek on their Giro — and they have fought through disappointment to show their class. Daan Hoole, the tallest rider in the race at 6ft 6in (198cm), was one of the hidden stars behind Mads Pedersen's stage wins, controlling the peloton in the early stages and keeping the pace high enough to shed specialist sprinters. Now he has his own reward — taking a surprise win in the stage 10 time-trial, capitalising on the best of the day's weather conditions to pip INEOS Grenadiers' Josh Tarling by seven seconds. Hoole is the reigning Dutch time-trial champion, but this was comfortably the biggest result of his career. The breakout rider of the Giro, Mathias Vacek, continues to edge closer to a stage win after almost escaping with Romain Bardet on the stage to Vicenza. But that stage instead was won by Lidl-Trek's star man Pedersen, whose form has rendered the battle for the ciclamino points jersey all but over. Stage 13 was his best performance of the lot. On Vicenza's short but sharply uphill sprint, the Dane beat out specialist climbers and puncheurs to take his fourth stage of the first two weeks. Pedersen has more chances to come on stages 18 and 21, too. But Ciccone's withdrawal on stage 14 was a major blow. At the time, the Italian was sitting seventh in the standings, 2.20 off the lead. His mission this Giro was to prove that he could be a genuine GC contender — and the Italian looked set for his first ever top 10 at a Grand Tour. Advertisement On Sunday, domestique Carlos Verona joined the breakaway — likely only freed up due to Ciccone's injury. He was stronger than any of his companions, escaping solo with over 40km remaining to take victory by 22 seconds. It was just the second win of his professional career. 'We lost Cicco yesterday,' he told TNT Sports post-stage. 'Today I was riding with him in my mind and my legs. I was pulling with all my heart for the team.' You can't lose with support like this 😍 Ride inside the Lidl-Trek team car as Carlos Verona soared to Stage 15 victory at the Giro d'Italia with a daring solo attack 💥🏆 ____________ 🇮🇹 #GirodItalia @LidlTrek — Velon CC (@VelonCC) May 25, 2025 It leaves Lidl-Trek as winners of six of the 15 stages — a staggering 40 per cent.
CNA
25-05-2025
- Sport
- CNA
Verona solos to Giro stage 15 win, Del Toro retains lead
Carlos Verona claimed his first Grand Tour stage win when the Lidl-Trek rider rode solo to victory on Sunday's stage 15 of the Giro d'Italia, a 219km ride from Fiume Veneto to Asiago. Verona attacked at the foot of the final climb with 44km to go and although several riders tried to give chase, the Spanish climber finished 22 seconds ahead of Florian Stork with Christian Scaroni third. Isaac Del Toro of UAE Team Emirates retained his pink jersey and will take a lead of one minute and 20 seconds into the final week. Pre-race favourite Primoz Roglic finished more than a minute behind the pink jersey group after he lost ground on the final climb.
