Lizzie Deignan

Elizabeth Mary Deignan (née Armitstead; born 18 December 1988) is an English track and road racing cyclist, who last rode professionally for UCI Women's WorldTeam . She was the 2015 World road race champion. She is regarded as the best British female road cyclist of her generation, scoring a total of 43 UCI race wins. where she attended Prince Henry's Grammar School, a state comprehensive school. She took up cycling in 2004 after British Cycling's Olympic Talent Team visited the school. She is a graduate of British Cycling's Olympic Podium Programme.

Career 2005–2009: Track years

Deignan won a silver medal in the scratch race at the Junior World Track Championships in 2005, she was under-23 European Scratch Race Champion in 2007 and 2008, and came second in the Points Race in 2007. In the 2008–09 UCI Track Cycling World Cup Classics, she took a total of seven gold medals after competing in three of the five meetings.

Deignan was a member of the gold medal-winning team pursuit squad at the 2009 UCI Track Cycling World Championships, her second appearance at a senior world championship event. She also competed in the scratch race, where despite being brought down in the closing stages of the race, she jumped back on to claim the silver medal. She completed the championships with a full set of medals, winning bronze in the points race whilst riding with her right wrist numb and strapped up – she was only able to move her forefinger and thumb.

2009–2011: Move to road Alongside her breakthrough in the velodrome, Deignan was also making progress in road racing: in 2008 she was part of the team which delivered Nicole Cooke to the road race gold at the World Championships in Varese, Italy, That season she also took a stage of the Tour de l'Ardèche and won the youth classification of the Giro d'Italia. That year she won three more stages of the Tour de l'Ardèche and a silver medal in the road race at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi. That year she clinched the first of four elite British road titles, holding off Cooke, Sharon Laws and Emma Pooley to win in Stamfordham. Deignan built the whole of her campaign around the 2012 Summer Olympics, taking spring classics wins at the Omloop van het Hageland and Gent–Wevelgem:

2013 Having had to move teams in the past two seasons due to teams disbanding, Deignan signed for the team for the 2013 season. Her 2013 season was affected by a recurring stomach illness which was eventually diagnosed as a symptom of a hiatal hernia. Even with her well documented medical concerns, Deignan emerged victorious at the British National Road Race Championships in Glasgow – claiming her second white, red and blue jersey.

2014 In April 2014, it was announced that Deignan had renewed her contract with until the end of 2016. Deignan enjoyed a career-best year, starting with a win at the Omloop van het Hageland. A week later she also won the first World Cup race of the season, the Ronde van Drenthe, after teammate Ellen van Dijk closed a significant gap for her in the final kilometres of the race. At the third World Cup race, the Tour of Flanders, she finished second behind van Dijk. Deignan took part in the inaugural La Course by Le Tour de France in Paris on 27 July 2014, but crashed with to the finish. A week later she won the women's road race at the Commonwealth Games. Armitstead, overhauled Emma Pooley with to go to win her first major gold medal. Deignan won the UCI Women's Road World Cup with a race to spare on 24 August 2014. An 8th-place finish in the Open de Suède Vårgårda was enough to secure the overall title.

2015 For the 2015 season, Deignan stated again her intention to build towards the UCI Road World Championships. She claimed the first overall win of her career taking the Ladies Tour of Qatar stage race, as well as winning two stages. Deignan then went on to take victories at the one day World Cup races Trofeo Alfredo Binda-Comune di Cittiglio and Philadelphia Cycling Classic, along with the Holland Hills Classic.

In June, Deignan was forced to pull out of The Women's Tour after colliding with a group of photographers seconds after winning the first stage of the tour in Suffolk. However, ten days later she had recovered sufficiently to win convincingly the British National Road Race Championships for the third time taking her to the top of the UCI world rankings. In August, she sprinted to victory in the final World Cup race of the season, the GP de Plouay, to retain her World Cup title ahead of her main challenger, Anna van der Breggen.

To cap her best season to date, on 26 September, Deignan won the World Championships road race in Richmond, Virginia, USA, beating van der Breggen in a sprint from a small group of nine riders at the finish line, becoming the fourth British woman to win the world road race title after Beryl Burton, Mandy Jones and Nicole Cooke.

2016

Deignan's stated aim for the 2016 season was the road race at the Olympic Games, and she started the season as she had finished off the previous one, securing a number of one day race wins, as well as a General classification victory, breaking any curse of the rainbow jersey. Deignan took four victories in the inaugural UCI Women's World Tour; Strade Bianche, Trofeo Alfredo Binda, Tour of Flanders and the overall title at The Women's Tour. Deignan also took victories in the Holland Hills Classic and Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. At the Games, she finished just outside the medals in fifth place. The decision has drawn criticism from various quarters.

In a 5 August 2016 interview, she said she believes that people will doubt her status as a clean sportsperson forever. World squash champion James Willstrop wrote in defence of Deignan, arguing that the complexity of testing procedures can easily lead to missed tests and noting that she had 16 clean tests in 2016.

2017 Deignan endured a difficult start to her 2017 season: after finishing third at Strade Bianche, she fell ill, which hampered her training. However, her form picked up for the Ardennes classics, finishing second to team-mate van der Breggen in the Amstel Gold Race, La Flèche Wallonne Féminine and Liège–Bastogne–Liège. She subsequently took her first win of the season on home ground at the Tour de Yorkshire in April, crossing the line solo almost a minute ahead of her nearest rivals. She took another solo win at the British National Championships on the Isle of Man in June, attacking from a small group with two laps of the finishing circuit remaining alongside Katie Archibald and Hannah Barnes: the trio caught and passed race leader Elinor Barker with to go, with Deignan breaking away immediately afterwards to take her fourth senior national road race title.

The following month, she finished second at La Course by Le Tour de France, finishing behind winner Annemiek van Vleuten on the Col d'Izoard: she stated that she was "surprised" by her performance, having never enjoyed success on a mountaintop finish before. In August she took her first World Tour win of the season at the GP de Plouay – Bretagne, breaking away from rivals alongside Pauline Ferrand-Prévot on the final climb, before outsprinting Ferrand-Prévot to cross the finish line first. She became the third woman to win the race twice, alongside Vos and Pooley. However, the remainder of her season was disrupted shortly afterwards after being struck with appendicitis whilst competing in the Holland Ladies Tour.

2021 Deignan was chosen to be part of the UK's cycling squad at the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics where she contested the road race with Anna Shackley as a teammate. The race finished with an unexpected winner in Anna Kiesenhofer of Austria, with Deignan finding the conditions humid and difficult. She finished 11th in the race.

In early October, she went on to win the Paris–Roubaix Femmes with a solo breakaway of more than , a victory described by commentators as one of the greatest Roubaix rides of all time. Deignan therefore became the first woman to win a 'triple crown' of all women's Monument classics, having won the 2016 Tour of Flanders for Women, and the 2020 Liège–Bastogne–Liège Femmes.

2022

In February, Deignan announced that she would sit out the 2022 season, as she was pregnant with her second child. She also announced she had signed a contract extension with to return to racing in 2023. to the end of the four-day race. She was selected to represent Great Britain at the Paris Olympics, finishing 12th in what was her fourth Games appearance. On 15 November, Deignan announced she would retire at the end of the 2025 season.

2025 In May, Deignan won the stage 1 team time trial at La Vuelta Femenina with her teammates. In July, Deignan announced that she was pregnant with her third child, and was therefore retiring from professional cycling with immediate effect.

Personal life She married fellow professional road racing cyclist Philip Deignan in Otley on 17 September 2016. The couple have two children: a daughter, born in September 2018, and a son, born in September 2022.

She splits her time between Otley and Monaco.

Career achievements Major results Road Source:

2006 1st National Criterium Championships 1st WCRA Criterium Championships 2007 1st National Criterium Championships 5th Omloop van Borsele 6th Road race, UEC European Under-23 Championships 9th Omloop door Middag-Humsterland 2008 (1 pro win) 1st Boezinge–Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen 2009 (1) 1st Road race, National Under-23 Championships 1st Young rider classification, Giro d'Italia Femminile 2nd Road race, National Championships 3rd Overall Tour de l'Ardèche 1st Points classification 1st Stage 6 8th Omloop van Borsele 8th Chrono Champenois 9th Tour de Berne 2010 (5) 1st Road race, National Under-23 Championships 1st Stage 1 Tour de l'Aude

2nd Road race, National Championships 4th Overall La Route de France 1st Stage 6 4th Overall Tour de l'Ardèche 1st Points classification 1st Stages 3, 4 & 5 5th Emakumeen Saria 7th Overall Ster Zeeuwsche Eilanden 7th Grand Prix Elsy Jacobs 9th Road race, UCI World Championships 2011 (3) 1st Road race, National Championships Thüringen Rundfahrt 1st Points classification 1st Stage 6 1st Stage 1 Tour of Chongming Island 2nd Tour of Chongming Island World Cup 3rd Open de Suède Vårgårda TTT 4th Omloop van Borsele 6th GP Ciudad de Valladolid 7th Road race, UCI World Championships 7th GP Stad Roeselare 10th Ronde van Drenthe 2012 (1) 1st Omloop van het Hageland 1st Gent–Wevelgem Olympic Games

10th Time trial 2nd Road race, National Championships 3rd Novilon Euregio Cup 4th Overall Thüringen Rundfahrt 4th Gooik–Geraardsbergen–Gooik 4th Durango-Durango Emakumeen Saria 6th Overall Ster Zeeuwsche Eilanden 8th GP Stad Roeselare 10th Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2013 (1) National Championships 1st Road race 2nd Time trial 2nd Holland Hills Classic 2nd Ridderronde Maastricht 3rd Overall Holland Ladies Tour 1st Sprints classification

6th Overall La Route de France 7th Overall Energiewacht Tour 7th Ronde van Drenthe 9th Tour of Flanders 2014 (4)

1st Omloop van het Hageland 1st Ronde van Drenthe 1st Otley Grand Prix 2nd Overall Thüringen Rundfahrt 1st Points classification 1st Mountains classification 1st Stage 1 2nd Trofeo Alfredo Binda 2nd Tour of Flanders 2nd La Flèche Wallonne 2nd Durango-Durango Emakumeen Saria 3rd Road race, National Championships 3rd Drentse 8 3rd Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 3rd RideLondon Grand Prix 3rd Open de Suède Vårgårda TTT 7th Road race, UCI World Championships 8th Open de Suède Vårgårda 8th GP de Plouay 2015 (10) UCI World Championships 1st Road race

1st Road race, National Championships 1st Overall Tour of Qatar 1st Points classification 1st Stages 3 & 4 1st Trofeo Alfredo Binda 1st Holland Hills Classic 1st Philadelphia Cycling Classic 1st GP de Plouay 1st Stage 1 The Women's Tour 2nd Strade Bianche 3rd Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 3rd Crescent Vårgårda TTT 4th La Course by Le Tour de France 7th Ronde van Drenthe 8th Tour of Flanders 2016 (7) UCI World Championships

4th Road race 1st Overall The Women's Tour 1st British rider classification 1st Stage 3 1st Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 1st Strade Bianche 1st Trofeo Alfredo Binda 1st Tour of Flanders 1st Holland Hills Classic 1st Crescent Vårgårda TTT 1st Stage 2 (TTT) Holland Ladies Tour 5th Road race, Olympic Games 2017 (3) 1st Road race, National Championships 1st Tour de Yorkshire 1st GP de Plouay 1st Stage 1 (TTT) Giro Rosa 2nd La Course by Le Tour de France 2nd Amstel Gold Race 2nd La Flèche Wallonne 2nd Liège–Bastogne–Liège 3rd Strade Bianche 2019 (2) 1st Overall The Women's Tour 1st Points classification 1st British rider classification 1st Stage 5 7th Overall Holland Ladies Tour 7th Liège–Bastogne–Liège 2020 (3) 1st Overall UCI World Tour 1st Liège–Bastogne–Liège 1st GP de Plouay 1st La Course by Le Tour de France 1st Stage 1 (TTT) Giro Rosa 4th La Flèche Wallonne 6th Road race, UCI World Championships 8th Gent–Wevelgem 9th Emakumeen Nafarroako Klasikoa 2021 (2) 1st Overall Tour de Suisse 1st Points classification 1st Mountains classification 1st Paris–Roubaix 4th Overall Giro Rosa 1st Stage 1 (TTT) 7th GP de Plouay 9th Overall Thüringen Ladies Tour 9th La Course by Le Tour de France 2023 3rd Overall RideLondon Classique 6th Road race, UCI World Championships 2024 1st Stage 1 (TTT) La Vuelta Femenina 3rd Road race, National Championships 7th Overall Tour of Britain 1st Mountains classification

Classics results timeline

+ Legend — Did not compete DNF Did not finish IP In progress NH Not held

Track

2005 National Junior Championships 1st Points race 2nd 500m time trial 3rd Scratch

2006 2nd Scratch, National Championships National Junior Championships 2nd Points race 2nd Individual pursuit 3rd Scratch 3rd 500m time trial 2007 UEC European Under-23 Championships 1st Scratch

2008 UEC European Under-23 Championships 1st Scratch 1st Team pursuit

UCI World Cup Classics 1st Points race, Manchester 1st Scratch, Manchester 1st Team pursuit, Manchester 1st Scratch, Melbourne 1st Team pursuit, Melbourne 2009 UCI World Championships

2008–09 UCI World Cup Classics, Copenhagen 1st Scratch 1st Team pursuit 2009–10 UCI World Cup Classics, Manchester 1st Team pursuit 1st Points race 2010 UCI World Championships

2011 National Championships 1st Points race 1st Scratch 2015 Revolution Series 1st Points race, Manchester 1st Points race, Glasgow 3rd Scratch, Glasgow

Awards and honours In 2015, Deignan was nominated for the 2015 BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award, following her world championship victory; she finished tenth, with approximately 22,000 of the 1.009 million votes cast.

Deignan was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to cycling.

Her name is one of those featured on the sculpture Ribbons, unveiled in 2024.