Latest news with #TourofBritain
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Lizzie Deignan's farewell tour off to tricky start on Yorkshire home roads
Kim Le Court and Kristen Faulkner congratulate each other on finishing first and second respectively. Kim Le Court and Kristen Faulkner congratulate each other on finishing first and second respectively. Photograph: Olly Hassell/ There was personal celebration but professional frustration for Lizzie Deignan on the opening day of her final Tour of Britain when her Lidl-Trek team failed to stop the Mauritian national champion, Kim Le Court, taking the first stage win and overall race lead in Redcar. Deignan's valedictory race on British roads began with a fast 85.6km opening stage, from Dalby Forest to the beachfront in Redcar, and took in some of her longstanding training roads within an hour or so of her home in Otley, West Yorkshire. Advertisement Related: Simon Yates rides away with prize of Giro d'Italia while rivals lose the plot | William Fotheringham But although her team had strength in depth in the 20-rider pursuit of the day's breakaway, they proved unable to close down Le Court and Kristen Faulkner, the Olympic champion, who stayed clear to contest the seaside finish. 'We had a clear plan and executed it exactly as we wanted,' said Le Court, riding for the AG Insurance-Soudal team. 'I'm really happy that the legs reacted and I was able to pull it off for the team. We'll see how long I can keep the jersey for. Friday is a stage that suits me a bit more, so I'm going in with a bit more confidence than today.' Deignan was prominent throughout the stage, but whenLe Court, winner of this year's Liège-Bastogne-Liège, broke clear on Langburn's Bank, the steepest gradient of the second classified climb, Deignan's Lidl-Trek team was distanced. Advertisement Le Court's powerful acceleration on the 16% sections at the base of the climb proved too much for her rivals, including Deignan's teammate, the Paris 2024 silver medallist Anna Henderson, who tried to give chase but was unable to follow the move. Only Faulkner, of EF Education-Oatly, was able to close the gap and the pair, who joined forces on the descent, then worked together to build a half-minute lead on their pursuers during the undulating run into Redcar. Even though Deignan's team had four of their five riders in the chasing group, and were aided both by Cat Ferguson's Movistar team and the French FDJ-Suez team, they were unable to close down the half-minute advantage. But Faulkner almost came unstuck on a right-hand bend in the closing kilometres, misjudging her speed and skidding to a halt against a traffic island. Sportingly, Le Court, knowing that their break had a better chance of success if the pair stayed together, waited for the American. While Lorena Wiebes, a past stage winner, took third in the sprint, Ferguson, making her debut in the race, was the first British finisher on the stage, finishing fifth. The junior world road race champion is now sixth overall, 18 seconds adrift of Le Court. Advertisement Ferguson, who also took the lead in the best young rider classification, admitted she had expected there to be a regrouping in the final kilometres. 'I thought it would definitely come down to a sprint,' the 19-year-old said, 'so for the two to stay away was a surprise. They were too strong, so credit to them for staying away.' By her own admission Deignan's days as an overall contender are probably gone, but Skipton-born Ferguson, seen as her natural heir, is well-placed to make an impact as the race goes on. 'I've not thought about my strategy yet,' she said, 'but I'm just going to take it day by day and approach each day like we did today, like a real team.' Friday's second stage of the four-day race takes the peloton from Hartlepool to Saltburn-by-the-sea and finishes with the infamous hairpins of Saltburn Bank, the venue for recent National Championships. The steep climb to the finish is well-known to British riders in the peloton and was pivotal to the outcome of the women's road race in 2023 and 2024, both of which were won by Pfeiffer Georgi, of the Picnic PostNL team.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- Lifestyle
- The Guardian
Lizzie Deignan's farewell tour off to tricky start on Yorkshire home roads
There was personal celebration but professional frustration for Lizzie Deignan on the opening day of her final Tour of Britain when her Lidl-Trek team failed to stop the Mauritian national champion, Kim Le Court, taking the first stage win and overall race lead in Redcar. Deignan's valedictory race on British roads began with a fast 85.6km opening stage, from Dalby Forest to the beachfront in Redcar, and took in some of her longstanding training roads within an hour or so of her home in Otley, West Yorkshire. But although her team had strength in depth in the 20-rider pursuit of the day's breakaway, they proved unable to close down Le Court and Kristen Faulkner, the Olympic champion, who stayed clear to contest the seaside finish. 'We had a clear plan and executed it exactly as we wanted,' said Le Court, riding for the AG Insurance-Soudal team. 'I'm really happy that the legs reacted and I was able to pull it off for the team. We'll see how long I can keep the jersey for. Friday is a stage that suits me a bit more, so I'm going in with a bit more confidence than today.' Deignan was prominent throughout the stage, but whenLe Court, winner of this year's Liège-Bastogne-Liège, broke clear on Langburn's Bank, the steepest gradient of the second classified climb, Deignan's Lidl-Trek team was distanced. Le Court's powerful acceleration on the 16% sections at the base of the climb proved too much for her rivals, including Deignan's teammate, the Paris 2024 silver medallist Anna Henderson, who tried to give chase but was unable to follow the move. Only Faulkner, of EF Education-Oatly, was able to close the gap and the pair, who joined forces on the descent, then worked together to build a half-minute lead on their pursuers during the undulating run into Redcar. Even though Deignan's team had four of their five riders in the chasing group, and were aided both by Cat Ferguson's Movistar team and the French FDJ-Suez team, they were unable to close down the half-minute advantage. But Faulkner almost came unstuck on a right-hand bend in the closing kilometres, misjudging her speed and skidding to a halt against a traffic island. Sportingly, Le Court, knowing that their break had a better chance of success if the pair stayed together, waited for the American. While Lorena Wiebes, a past stage winner, took third in the sprint, Ferguson, making her debut in the race, was the first British finisher on the stage, finishing fifth. The junior world road race champion is now sixth overall, 18 seconds adrift of Le Court. Ferguson, who also took the lead in the best young rider classification, admitted she had expected there to be a regrouping in the final kilometres. 'I thought it would definitely come down to a sprint,' the 19-year-old said, 'so for the two to stay away was a surprise. They were too strong, so credit to them for staying away.' By her own admission Deignan's days as an overall contender are probably gone, but Skipton-born Ferguson, seen as her natural heir, is well-placed to make an impact as the race goes on. 'I've not thought about my strategy yet,' she said, 'but I'm just going to take it day by day and approach each day like we did today, like a real team.' Friday's second stage of the four-day race takes the peloton from Hartlepool to Saltburn-by-the-sea and finishes with the infamous hairpins of Saltburn Bank, the venue for recent National Championships. The steep climb to the finish is well-known to British riders in the peloton and was pivotal to the outcome of the women's road race in 2023 and 2024, both of which were won by Pfeiffer Georgi, of the Picnic PostNL team.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
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. Advertisement Related: Edinburgh and Yorkshire to host Tour de France Grand Départs in 2027 '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.' Advertisement 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.' Advertisement 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.' 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.'' Advertisement '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 Herald Scotland
a day ago
- General
- The Herald Scotland
Lizzie Deignan ‘incredibly emotional' ahead of Tour of Britain farewell
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. Lizzie Deignan won the first of her two Women's Tour titles in 2016 (Rui Vieira/PA) 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.'
The Herald Scotland
6 days ago
- Sport
- The Herald Scotland
Kate Richardson: It took hitting rock bottom to get help
Indeed, losing a few bike races would have been easy to cope with in comparison to the desperate place Richardson found herself in less than a year ago, with merely leaving the house feeling like an impossibility, never mind competing for victories on the global stage. There is no overstating the depths to which Richardson fell last year, with her challenges feeling all the more significant given that she had been viewed as one of the brightest British prospects on two wheels. Having begun her sporting life as a triathlete - she won multiple junior national titles - Richardson transitioned to cycling in 2021, quickly establishing herself as a forced to be reckoned with on both the road and the track by winning the Ras na mBan stage race as well as double gold at the under-23 European Track Cycling Championships in 2022 and 2023 respectively. Her maiden British titles came at the start of 2024, with Richardson utterly oblivious to the turbulence that was on its way. As she finalised her preparations for last year's Tour of Britain Women, at which Richardson had been touted as a rider to watch, her life changed in the blink of an eye. While out on a training ride - indeed, it was her final training ride before the Tour of Britain began - Richardson was knocked off her bike by a vehicle. The first she knew of the collision was the 4x4 hitting her from behind. The next thing she remembers is lying, badly hurt, on the road. Richardson had suffered a fractured scapula and concussion but perhaps the greatest damage inflicted was by the driver of the vehicle, who disappeared before returning to the scene and proceeded to stand above Richardson, refusing to help and instead, hurled verbal abuse towards her as she lay on the roadside. It's an incident that would be enough to traumatise anyone, but even Richardson could not have predicted the knock-on impact that day would have on the months that followed. 'Lying on the ground being shouted at, all the while not knowing what kind of condition I was in or how seriously I was hurt, was the most traumatic thing of all for me,' the 22-year-old says of that fateful day last June. 'The effect that crash had on me and my life was just awful because I then slipped into a depression. 'We still don't know exactly what caused the depression - it might have been a delayed onset concussion, which can cause emotional side effects and symptoms. 'For months I couldn't sleep properly - I'd wake at 2am and stay awake for hours so I was constantly exhausted. I remember googling 'elite athletes who've had mental health struggles' because I wanted some reassurance that I would be okay. Because at that point, I really wasn't sure if I would be. 'I was in a very, very bad place mentally. I had no motivation to do anything and I couldn't find any joy in anything - and I don't mean just cycling, I mean life. 'I hated the sport of cycling but actually I hated everything. I was just surviving each day. 'It was hard because it was taking a massive toll on my family as well as on me because every single day I was sobbing uncontrollably and I could barely even get out of bed never mind get on a bike.' Kate Richardson has endured the most testing year of her life (Image: Getty Images) As is so often the case with elite athletes, Richardson deduced the best way forward was to push through, despite the fact she was clearly not in any kind of mental state to do such a thing. It's an attitude that gets elite athlete to the top of their sport, but it's also one that can be seriously damaging when suffering from a mental breakdown in the way Richardson was. She remembers, though, the exact moment when it finally dawned upon her that she couldn't get better alone and needed some serious help, immediately. 'I was in denial for months about how I was feeling and I just ploughed on," the Glaswegian says. 'I thought that getting to a race would solve my issues. I don't know how but, late last year, I managed to get myself into good enough form to be selected for the European Track Championships. But when I was in Manchester preparing, I had a massive breakdown. I remember sitting in my Airbnb, on my own, and it all just came to a head. 'I hit rock bottom. I couldn't think how to clean my bike or make my lunch or do basic, day-to-day things. 'Life felt horrific and I wondered if I would ever be a cyclist again. 'Unfortunately it took me too long to realise I had to do something - I had thought if I just kept going it would be okay but it's not as simple as that. It took hitting rock bottom for me to realise I could not continue down this path and I knew that the most important thing was for me to feel like myself again. 'So I got put on medication and I started working intensively with my psychologist.' Richardson's progress was steady and, slowly but surely, she began to feel like she was getting back to her 'old self', with her sense of closure being heightened after the driver who crashed into her recently being convicted of the charges brought against him and being handed a suspended jail sentence, disqualified from driving and fined. There was, however, a significant bump in the road in her recovery in March when she was forced to leave the road team she had signed for late last year, Hess Cycling, due to several alleged breaches of contract, including the team's reported failure to pay its riders. The disruption caused by Hess to Richardson's season was fortunately, minimal, with the Scot almost immediately signing for Scottish set-up, Alba Road Team, with which she's previously ridden. Richardson re-joined Alba in March and, having recovered considerably from the bout of depression that plagued her for the second half of last year, she rediscovered the form that had seen her identified as one of GB's brightest talents. Last month, Richardson won the general classification at the Tour de Feminin, producing a hugely impressive ride and signalling that she is ready to make a significant impact at the Tour of Britain Women, which begins on Thursday. Significantly, the race has two Scottish stages, with stage three snaking around the Scottish Borders before the fourth and final stage, which begins and ends in Glasgow. The line-up is strong, with Lizzie Deignan, Anna Henderson and Lorena Wiebes all worth watching out for, but given Richardson is feeling as good as she has in quite some time both physically and mentally, it's unsurprising she has lofty ambitions next week. 'As a team, Alba has a lot of targets which are not all about GC and I think we've got a great chance of being competitive,' she says. 'Personally, I see myself as a better stage racer than one day racer because I'm pretty good at backing up days so I would like to get a good result in GC. 'My form is good and I feel like I've got positive momentum, and the fact that the final stage is in Glasgow is such a motivator.' Richardson becomes understandably moved when she reflects on what she's been through and how difficult it's been for her to reach this point at which she's happy once again as both a person and a bike racer. And given she doubted she could ever feel like this again, she feels somewhat overwhelmed when looking back on her past twelve months. 'I feel quite emotional talking about what I've been through and coming out the other side because at the start of this year, I could never have foreseen being in such a good place,' she says. 'This period of my life has been hellish so I can't believe I turned it around so quickly. I think I will cry of happiness every time I do something good now because I feel so proud that I've managed to get to this point. 'It actually gives me a lot of confidence, too, because in those difficult moments, you tell yourself that you're mentally weak because you're struggling but when you come out the other side, you realise how strong you actually are. 'The Tour of Britain next week will be an emotional few days, but it'll be good emotions I'll be feeling now, not bad ones."
