Simply 10 days earlier than she animated the Paris Olympics street race, Lizzie Deignan had a “medical emergency” and spent an evening in hospital, she revealed.
The Brit completed twelfth within the race, having been considered one of its key instigators within the main group. Not as soon as, however twice Deignan attacked on the Montmartre ending circuit, hoping to arrange a profitable transfer for her Workforce GB teammate, Pfeiffer Georgi, who positioned fifth.
Talking to the media beneath the Eiffel Tower, Deignan defined that she had had an “completely abysmal preparation” for the race.
“I received Covid through the Giro and raced by chance with it and actually put myself in a gap. After which I used to be in hospital with a medical emergency 10 days in the past, I spent the night time in hospital. I am alright, nearly,” she mentioned.
“It has been a kind of build-ups the place it is arduous to return into with out the proof of the work. It has been an emotional rollercoaster. I am prepared to relax out.”
Deignan was considered one of three British riders in a 10-strong group on the entrance of the Olympic street race, alongside Georgi and time trial silver medallist Anna Henderson. All three tried daring assaults, none of which caught for longer than a couple of minutes.
“From the surface it may need seemed a bit odd,” Deignan mentioned, “however I assumed, ‘You understand what, we have got three.’ Perhaps from the surface you try to preserve the three for so long as you’ll be able to, however I knew really one of the best factor I might do was set up that breakaway, give Pfeiffer a free journey, and as quickly as [Lotte] Kopecky jumped throughout, that is after I began attacking.
“They have been full suicide strikes. I had no intention of driving away to a medal, as a result of I used to be actually struggling at the moment with ache.”
The race, in the long run, was received by American Kristen Faulkner, who received a leap on a number one quartet with round 3km to go. Dutchwoman Marianne Vos earned second and Belgium’s Lotte Kopecky got here third in a three-up dash for the rostrum, with Hungary’s Kata Blanka Vas lacking out by a tyre’s width.
“Bike driving is not simple. I feel the strongest rider within the bike race received,” Deignan mentioned. “Faulkner is an outstanding athlete, and she or he pulled it off, so chapeau to her. And naturally, chapeau to Marianne, she is the GOAT [Greatest Of All Time] of our sport.”
Deignan, who received a silver medal within the street race on the London Olympics in 2012, confirmed that she has signed one other 12 months’s cope with her commerce workforce, Lidl-Trek, for 2025.
The Los Angeles Olympics in 2028, nevertheless, are “completely not” in her sights, she laughed. “There will be no LA. Not on the bike anyway,” the 35-year-old mentioned. “I will be on the couch.”
