4. Emma Pooley
4. Emma Pooley
Emma Pooley ended her professional road cycling career last season with a CV brimming with top results and and superb rides.
The diminutive Pooley, a vocal advocate for women’s road cycling, packs plenty of punch on the road and her final season in the peloton was one of her finest.
The 2010 world time trial champion claimed a top ten finish in the Ardennes at La Fleche Wallonne Feminine and won three stages of the Giro d’Italia Femminile, as well as the mountains classification.
Pooley’s stage six victory was typical of her fighting spirit. Having lost five minutes on the opening stage of the race due to a nosebleed and breathing problems which effectively ruled her out of the GC, Pooley responded by attacking on the first mountain stage on a 20 per cent climb, riding solo for 25km, before being caught by a group, only to drop them on the main climb of the day and keeping an elite chasing pack at bay, which included eventual overall winner Marianne Vos, to win the stage.
Pooley also lit up the Women’s Tour with a series of strong rides in the break, won the British time trial championship for the third time and claimed double silver at the Commonwealth Games, first in the time trial and then, in her final race as a pro cyclist, after setting up English team-mate Lizzie Armitstead for victory in the road race.
Pooley may have now retired from professional cycling but she continues to blaze a trail as a triathlete and duathlete, and won the long-distance duathlon world title in September – a testament to her love of suffering.
Career highlights: The 2010 world time trial champion has won multiple one-day and stage races and also topped the Giro d’Italia Femminile mountains classification on three occasions.