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Lizzie Armitstead today took her first UCI-ranked victory on the road, winning the final stage of the Tour de l'Ardèche. Prior to this she had already taken two second-places and one third-place in previous stages, and not unsurprisingly these results saw her finish third overall.
Ardèche is a pretty tough race, and stage 4 in particular - where she was second - featured some serious climbing. These results come on the back of a second-place in the young rider category at the Tour de l'Aude and victory in the same category at the Giro d'Italia.
She did lose a lot of time in both of the grand tours - finishing 18:30 (14th place) behind Claudia Häusler in Aude and 27:00 (15th place) behind the same rider at the Giro. But her stage and overall placings were mightily impressive, regularly top-20 in both races. Besides all this, she was Britain's best rider at the track Worlds too, gaining a gold, a silver and a bronze medal. And she is still only 20.
What interests me is that she can sprint - not a serious threat to the very top few (not yet, anyway), but enough to trouble the rest of the peloton; and evidently she is gradually in a similar position with her climbing - far from the top of the tree, but one of the most consistent non-climbers. And she has been frequently upper-mid-table in the time-trials. There is still a considerable gap between her and the serious GC riders, but she is much younger than most of them. I'm curious as to where she is likely to be in three years' time (at Häusler's age). At the same age (in 2006), Häusler finished eighth in Aude by 5:00 which is pretty amazing, although her performances in 2007 in both Aude and at the Giro were similar to Armitstead's this year.
When you look at Armitstead's characteristics - a fast girl who can go up the hills pretty well, it's not dissimilar to the basic profile of Nicole Cooke. Obviously nowadays Cooke is distinguished by her climbing, her explosiveness, and to a lesser extent her time-trialling too. On all terrain, Cooke can be described as very good but not the best. Armitstead isn't on the same level, but you can see the similarity in some of her attributes and the possibility of improvement in all areas. Of course if we want to drag comparisons in, Cooke won the Giro at 21 which I don't think anyone expects Armitstead to do. But the foundations are there to believe that in the future she could be a serious Grand Tour contender, perhaps more so than Emma Pooley.
Anyway, that's all contemplation and conjecture. But I thought in a year when the headlines have all been about Cavendish, Wiggins and Pooley, that arguably the most impressive British rider of 2009 shouldn't be overlooked. She has had a magnificent season.
Ardèche is a pretty tough race, and stage 4 in particular - where she was second - featured some serious climbing. These results come on the back of a second-place in the young rider category at the Tour de l'Aude and victory in the same category at the Giro d'Italia.
She did lose a lot of time in both of the grand tours - finishing 18:30 (14th place) behind Claudia Häusler in Aude and 27:00 (15th place) behind the same rider at the Giro. But her stage and overall placings were mightily impressive, regularly top-20 in both races. Besides all this, she was Britain's best rider at the track Worlds too, gaining a gold, a silver and a bronze medal. And she is still only 20.
What interests me is that she can sprint - not a serious threat to the very top few (not yet, anyway), but enough to trouble the rest of the peloton; and evidently she is gradually in a similar position with her climbing - far from the top of the tree, but one of the most consistent non-climbers. And she has been frequently upper-mid-table in the time-trials. There is still a considerable gap between her and the serious GC riders, but she is much younger than most of them. I'm curious as to where she is likely to be in three years' time (at Häusler's age). At the same age (in 2006), Häusler finished eighth in Aude by 5:00 which is pretty amazing, although her performances in 2007 in both Aude and at the Giro were similar to Armitstead's this year.
When you look at Armitstead's characteristics - a fast girl who can go up the hills pretty well, it's not dissimilar to the basic profile of Nicole Cooke. Obviously nowadays Cooke is distinguished by her climbing, her explosiveness, and to a lesser extent her time-trialling too. On all terrain, Cooke can be described as very good but not the best. Armitstead isn't on the same level, but you can see the similarity in some of her attributes and the possibility of improvement in all areas. Of course if we want to drag comparisons in, Cooke won the Giro at 21 which I don't think anyone expects Armitstead to do. But the foundations are there to believe that in the future she could be a serious Grand Tour contender, perhaps more so than Emma Pooley.
Anyway, that's all contemplation and conjecture. But I thought in a year when the headlines have all been about Cavendish, Wiggins and Pooley, that arguably the most impressive British rider of 2009 shouldn't be overlooked. She has had a magnificent season.
