Lizzie Deignan confirmed for Giro d’Italia, but Tour de France Femmes still uncertain

In 2011, Lizzie Deignan was an emerging talent within women’s cycling and showing herself to be a top rider in the making, as she finished seventh at that year’s World Championships in Copenhagen. In the years that followed, she would go on to win many of the sport’s biggest races, including several Monuments, multiple stage races and the World Championships in 2015.

Now in her final season as a professional cyclist, she returned to the Danish capital for the inaugural edition of the Copenhagen Sprint last weekend. “It’s been a lifetime since I was last here, women’s cycling is in a very different place to then, so I’m really pleased to be back,” Deignan told Domestique at the start in Roskilde.

Having won almost everything there is to win as a one-day racer during her career, Deignan has taken a much more different role within her Lidl-Trek team in recent seasons, becoming more of a road captain than an outright team leader.

“I’m really enjoying it. It’s really different, but I get a lot of satisfaction from working with the next generation,” Deignan said. “We’ve got a really exciting group of women, so it’s nice to be able to pass on some knowledge before I hang it up.”

Deignan has also formed an integral part of the lead-out train for Elisa Balsamo over the last couple of seasons, often using her experience and abilities as a road captain, along with her pure strength, to guide her teammates into good position for the run-in towards the finish.

“It’s really difficult. The key is that you want to pick one side of the road and be dominant on that side to deliver Elisa without any problems, but everyone wants to do the same thing.”

As her career begins to draw to a close at the end of the year, Deignan is keen to get as much racing under her belt before retirement, though her full schedule has yet to be confirmed. “Anything goes, I think,” she said. “I don’t know yet. I literally know this race and the Giro d’Italia.”

It is not yet clear if the Giro will be her final Grand Tour, with a spot on the Tour de France Femmes roster still a possibility. “It’s selection based, which is always a good thing,” she said. “It means that we’ve got a strong team, so we’ll see what happens.”