Elizabeth Mary Deignan MBE (née Armitstead; born 18 December 1988) is an English professional world champion track and road racing cyclist, who rides for UCI Women's WorldTeam Lidl–Trek.[4] She was the 2015 World road race champion.
Deignan is also the 2014 Commonwealth Games road race champion and a twice winner of the season-long UCI Women's Road World Cup, winning the overall competition in 2014 and the final edition in 2015. At the 2012 Summer Olympics, Deignan won the silver medal in the road race. She has won the British National Road Race Championships four times, in 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017.
In 2021, Deignan won the first ever Paris–Roubaix Femmes to add to victories in the women's versions of Tour of Flanders and Liège–Bastogne–Liège, becoming the first woman to win a 'triple crown' of all women's Monument classics. Twice winner of The Women's Tour, the most important stage race for women in the UK, she has also won Strade Bianche Donne, La Course by Le Tour de France and the Trofeo Alfredo Binda-Comune di Cittiglio.
Prior to her road career, Deignan won a total of five medals at the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in 2009 and 2010, including a gold medal in team pursuit in 2009 with Joanna Rowsell and Wendy Houvenaghel.
Deignan was born in the market town of Otley in West Yorkshire,[5] 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.[6][7] She is a graduate of British Cycling's Olympic Podium Programme.[8][failed verification]
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.[9]
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.
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,[9] and the following year she joined the Lotto–Belisol Ladiesteam cycling team and rode a number of top level road races. She won the under 23 category of the British National Road Race Championships and the silver medal in the senior category after some controversy.[10][11] That season she also took a stage of the Tour de l'Ardèche and won the youth classification of the Giro d'Italia.[9] During the winter of 2009–10, Deignan returned to the track, taking two golds at the Manchester round of the 2009–10 UCI Track Cycling World Cup Classics and two silvers at the 2010 UCI Track Cycling World Championships.[9] In 2010, she rode for Cervélo TestTeam.[12] 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.[9] Deignan decided to stay with the franchise in its new guise as Garmin–Cervélo throughout 2011.[13]
Following the discontinuation of the Garmin–Cervélo women's team, Deignan rode for the AA Drink–leontien.nl team in 2012.[14] 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:[9] at the Games themselves, she would go on to win the silver medal in the road race at the Olympics, behind Marianne Vos, in so becoming the first Briton to win a medal at the 2012 Games.[15]
Having had to move teams in the past two seasons due to teams disbanding, Deignan signed for the Boels–Dolmans team for the 2013 season.[16][17] Her 2013 season was affected by a recurring stomach illness which was eventually diagnosed as a symptom of a hiatal hernia.[18] 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.[19]
In April 2014 it was announced that Deignan had renewed her contract with Boels–Dolmans until the end of 2016.[20] 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.[21] 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 1 kilometre (0.62 miles) to the finish.[22] A week later she won the women's road race at the Commonwealth Games.[23] Armitstead, overhauled Emma Pooley with 7 kilometres (4.3 miles) to go to win her first major gold medal.[24] Deignan won the UCI Women's Road World Cup with a race to spare on 24 August 2014.[25] An 8th-place finish in the Open de Suède Vårgårda was enough to secure the overall title.[26]
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.[27] However, ten days later she had recovered sufficiently to win convincingly the British National Road Race Championships for the third time[28] taking her to the top of the UCI world rankings.[29] 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.[30]
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.[31]
Deignan's stated aim for the 2016 season was the road race at the Olympic Games,[32] 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,[33][34] Trofeo Alfredo Binda,[35][36] Tour of Flanders[37] and the overall title at The Women's Tour.[38][39] Deignan also took victories in the Holland Hills Classic[40][41] and Omloop Het Nieuwsblad.[42] At the Games, she finished just outside the medals in fifth place.[9]
In 2016, Deignan avoided a ban from cycling that would have prevented her from competing in the Olympic Games. The charges against her were that she missed three drugs tests within a 12-month period (20 August 2015, 5 October 2015 and 9 June 2016), an offence that could have led to a four-year ban. However, at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, Deignan argued that the first missed test was not a fault of her own but rather that of the testing authorities. She accepted the other two instances. The CAS agreed with her on the first count, and it was declared not to have been a missed test, clearing her to compete.[43] The decision has drawn criticism from various quarters.[44]
In a 5 August 2016 interview, she said she believes that people will doubt her status as a clean sportsperson forever.[45] 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.[46]
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,[47] La Flèche Wallonne Féminine[48] and Liège–Bastogne–Liège.[49] 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.[50] 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 6.7-kilometre (4.2-mile) finishing circuit remaining alongside Katie Archibald and Hannah Barnes: the trio caught and passed race leader Elinor Barker with 5 kilometres (3.1 miles) to go, with Deignan breaking away immediately afterwards to take her fourth senior national road race title.[51]
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.[52] 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.[53] However, the remainder of her season was disrupted shortly afterwards after being struck with appendicitis whilst competing in the Holland Ladies Tour.[54]
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.[55] 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.[56]
In early October she went on to win the Paris–Roubaix Femmes with a solo breakaway of more than 80 kilometres (50 miles),[57] a victory described by commentators as one of the greatest Roubaix rides of all time.[58] 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.
In February, Deignan announced that she would sit out the 2022 season, as she was pregnant with her second child.[59] She also announced she had signed a contract extension with Trek–Segafredo to return to racing in 2023.[59]
She married fellow professional road racing cyclist Philip Deignan in Otley on 17 September 2016.[60] The couple have two children: a daughter, born in September 2018,[61] and a son, born in September 2022.[62]
She splits her time between Otley and Monaco.[9] Deignan has been a pescetarian for ethical reasons since the age of ten.[8][63]
Points race
Scratch, UCI World Junior Championships
Scratch
Points race Scratch Team pursuit Points race
Team pursuit Scratch
Points race Team pursuit Omnium Points race ScratchSource:[64]
National Criterium Championships National Criterium Championships Road race, National Under-23 Championships
Young rider classification, Giro d'Italia
Points classification Road race, National Under-23 Championships Road race, Commonwealth Games Points classification Road race, National Championships Points classification
Road race Road race
Sprints classification
Combination classification
Combativity award, Stage 2
Overall UCI World Cup
Road race, Commonwealth Games Points classification
Mountains classification Road race
Team time trial Overall UCI World Cup Road race, National Championships
Overall Tour of Qatar
Points classification
Team time trial Overall The Women's Tour
British rider classification Road race, National Championships Overall The Women's Tour
Points classification British rider classification
Overall UCI World Tour Overall Tour de Suisse
Points classification
Mountains classification| Classic | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Omloop Het Nieuwsblad | — | — | — | 10 | 36 | 3 | 3 | 1 | — | — | — | — | 111 | — |
| Strade Bianche | Race did not exist | 2 | 1 | 3 | — | — | 37 | — | — | |||||
| Ronde van Drenthe | — | — | 10 | 17 | 7 | 1 | 7 | DNF | — | — | — | NH | — | — |
| Trofeo Alfredo Binda | — | — | — | — | DNF | 2 | 1 | 1 | 39 | — | — | 12 | — | |
| Gent–Wevelgem | Race did not exist | 1 | — | — | — | 17 | — | — | — | 8 | 17 | — | ||
| Tour of Flanders | — | — | — | 34 | 9 | 2 | 8 | 1 | 17 | — | — | DNF | 18 | — |
| Paris–Roubaix | Race did not exist | NH | 1 | — | ||||||||||
| Amstel Gold Race | Not held | 2 | — | 19 | — | — | ||||||||
| La Flèche Wallonne | 22 | — | 47 | — | 12 | 2 | 21 | 28 | 2 | — | 23 | 4 | — | — |
| Liège–Bastogne–Liège | Race did not exist | 2 | — | 7 | 1 | — | — | |||||||
| GP de Plouay | 20 | 49 | 71 | — | 24 | 8 | 1 | 66 | 1 | — | — | 1 | 7 | — |
| Open de Suède Vårgårda | — | — | 14 | — | DNF | 8 | 19 | 62 | 35 | — | 46 | Not held | — | |
| — | Did not compete |
|---|---|
| DNF | Did not finish |
| IP | In progress |
| NH | Not held |
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.[65]
In December 2022, Deignan was appointed as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to cycling.[66][67]
