Lizzie Deignan third as Elisa Longo Borghini wins women's Strade Bianche
Brit bags surprise podium after team-mate's illness forces changes of tactics
British rider Lizzie Armitstead’s breakthrough on the road came in 2009 with a third place finish in the Tour de l’Ardeche. However, she had already won a hat-trick of gold medals on the track at the 2008 World Cup in Manchester, going on to claim a total of seven gold medals in that year’s World Cup Series.
In recent years, she has concentrated more on road racing, winning stages at the Tour de l’Aude and the Tour of Chongming Island and becoming national road champion in 2011 and 2013. However, the biggest year of her career to date was 2012 when, after winning both the Omloop van het Hageland and the Gent-Wevelgem, she won silver in the women’s road race at the London Olympics.
Born on 18th December 1988 in Leeds, West Yorkshire, Lizzie began cycling seriously in 2004 after British Cycling’s Olympic Talent Team visited her school, Prince Henry’s Grammar School in Otley. She was soon rising through the ranks of the Olympic Podium Programme, and her first major medal was a silver in the scratch race at the Junior World Track Championships in 2005.
Equally at home in both track and road events, Lizzie is undoubtedly one of the stars of British cycling – her performance at the 2012 Olympics, when she became the first member of Team GB to win a medal of any colour, made her a household name. In 2013 she rode for a new team Dolmans-Boels as she began her preparations for the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
