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Lesser Known Road Racing for Women Thread

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Lizzie D has announced she will retire at the end of 2025 season

As expected. The end of the Goat. I'm on drugs, so I'll keep it simple for now, what a fantastic career she's had. Here's hoping for one more win (or two). Great news for Realini.

Who is the next Lizzie? Pfeiffer?
 
As expected. The end of the Goat. I'm on drugs, so I'll keep it simple for now, what a fantastic career she's had. Here's hoping for one more win (or two). Great news for Realini.

Who is the next Lizzie? Pfeiffer?

maybe, but then I thought Hannah was the next Lizzie, then Alice, then Elynor...Zoe might be a good shout or we might even have to wait a few more years till Cat gets there.

its tricky because I dont know if other nations do it either, but theres no succession planning in British Cycling, so theres never been any effort put towards finding or nurturing the next Lizzie. Im not even sure they still run the same school project that picked Lizzie up as a talent in the first place, although almost certainly if they did theyd end up on the track team instead.

its not to say there arent talented riders coming through, but they tend to succeed inspite of the systems meant to help them, rather than because of them, so its always difficult to predict how individual riders will shape up.
 
maybe, but then I thought Hannah was the next Lizzie, then Alice, then Elynor...Zoe might be a good shout or we might even have to wait a few more years till Cat gets there.

its tricky because I dont know if other nations do it either, but theres no succession planning in British Cycling, so theres never been any effort put towards finding or nurturing the next Lizzie. Im not even sure they still run the same school project that picked Lizzie up as a talent in the first place, although almost certainly if they did theyd end up on the track team instead.

its not to say there arent talented riders coming through, but they tend to succeed inspite of the systems meant to help them, rather than because of them, so its always difficult to predict how individual riders will shape up.
The other problem that you have is that you don't just need them to be über talented, but also in the position to obtain 100% blatant favouritism from BC, and a 100% unshakeable sense of absolute entitlement about it too.

For about a decade, it wasn't just that Lizzie was the rider who BC treated as the chosen one on the road (and given some of the things she's said about them, the help that got her seems to have been pretty nominal outside of always prioritising her at championships to the exclusion of any concept of a plan B anyway), but that Lizzie was basically the only British women's road rider that most of the higher ups in BC even knew the name of.
 
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Hadn't realised it was so bad.
 
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Demi gave an interview to NRC recently, paywallwed and in Dutch. https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2024/11/2...-echt-geleerd-om-van-me-af-te-bijten-a4874157

couple of English summaries out there now https://cyclinguptodate.com/cycling...femmes-i-had-no-feeling-in-my-left-leg-at-all

But major takeaways are.

She broke her tailbone in the TdFF crash, and peed herself, which is apparently a side effect when that happens. The pain really affected her in the following stages, she had a panic attack on the penultimate stage and didn't even know what she was doing anymore felt completely zoned out, (which sounds alot like a reaction to painkillers) only recovered in the finale. The Alpe climb was immensely painful, but she went all in as much as she could though she knew it wouldn't be enough.

She doesn't blame anyone on the team for leaving her in Metz, says its Wiebes mentality to always go for the stage win, which is also SDworxs, and they're abit disorganised/focussed like that.

She only knew Avdb was coming back via social media. Later she found SDworx had just sent the announcement via email.

Her plan was to stay at SDworx next year, but she wanted some changes in focus, buy they weren't forthcoming and it felt like a slap in the face the way the team announced she was leaving, though she says at the time she hadn't decided to leave.

Says Lotte stopped speaking to her during the year and they did the Tour of Romandie without even talking to one another at all.

Takes the blame for the world champs race, knows she mucked it up, recognised she was too desperate to win, because of all the rest of the season and made all the wrong choices.

Doesn't talk much about FDJ, but has been working with their coaches since TdFF, and she also has protected rider status on the team.
 
Anybody still claiming that Demi was the problem?
The way riders & some of the public respond to her (at least from my more distant view) reminds me of an old movie (turns out a not very good one) I watched last night (called Mother and Daughter or something like that) in which Naomi Watts plays the role of a very independent, self-assured, and super-smart lawyer. At the outset she is being interviewed by Samuel Jackson (in a very strange bit of casting as he is so subdued) for a spot at a big law firm. At one point she tells him that she prefers to work for a male boss because women don’t usually like her. When asked why, she said she just isn’t part of the “sisterhood” and doesn’t play the part. Which the audience can see means she is so independent, aggressive, lone-wolfish, i.e. behaves and talks in a way that if she was a man wouldn’t be criticized as much. Unfortunately the film went for a maudlin ending.
 
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