And there’s more and more Britons coming to the fore in the Women’s World Tour, although the only other British rider to have won a World Tour race since it was launched in 2019 apart from Deignan is Team DSM-Firmenich Post NL’s Pfeiffer Georgi, who took victory in the Brugge-De Panne one day race in 2023.
Georgi, 23, is a powerful one-day racer who also captains her team in the peloton and protects other riders when not racing for herself, such as sprinters on flatter stages.
Many of the best British female talents in the peloton focus on one-day events and time trials; climbing still being a relatively new and uncommon type of racing on the women’s side of the sport.
“I love the one-day classics,” says Wales’ Elynor Backstedt, another one-day racer and time trialist with potential to win big.
“I love flat, hard, windy races. I don’t go so well in mountains. Cold, wet races are more my kind of thing.”
Backstedt, 22, along with her sister and “favourite rider in the peloton” Zoe, the 19-year-old multiple world junior champion, come from strong cycling stock – their mum and dad both raced, with dad Magnus winning the men’s Paris-Roubaix in 2004.
The elder Backstedt sister, who rides for Deignan’s Lidl-Trek team, added: “I’ve had a few rough years in terms of injuries. [Trying to compete for wins] is something I’m looking to do more of. I feel like I am good at reading the race well enough to be in that position.”
And the list of potential British achievers goes even deeper, including 22-year-old Anna Shackley, who came second at the inaugural Tour de l’Avenir Femmes in 2023 and who rides for the dominant SD Worx team, and Anna Henderson, fourth in last year’s world time trial championship, at Visma-Lease A Bike.