Road World Championships: Lizzie Deignan hoping home advantage can carry her to another title

Lizzie Deignan has a secret weapon. Saturday will be the first World Championship road race for 34 years to play out on British turf, yet Deignan has ridden every stretch of road before a thousand times, maybe more. She knows every kink in the course, every narrow bridge, every deceptively sharp corner, every lurking depression filled with hearty Harrogate rain. Deignan may not be in the form of her life or in the shape that delivered her 2015 world title, but what she does have is an innate feel for the lumps and bumps of Yorkshire that none of her rivals possess.

“Every since I started cycling I’ve been riding on these roads, so it will be quite strange when I’m actually racing on them,” she tells The Independent. “I know the whole circuit. Yorkshire roads are undulating all day long. There’s so many unmarked climbs on the course that other people won’t know that I’ll know to expect. That’s home advantage.”

Deignan grew up in nearby Otley and the women’s elite road race will run past her parents’ back garden. Her mum and dad will be at the finish line along with her husband, the retired rider Philip Deignan, and her young daughter Orla who turned one this week, to watch Lizzie complete the race she has been targeting ever since giving birth.

It is a very different scenario to the one four years ago, when she arrived in Richmond, Virginia on top of the world rankings as the outstanding favourite to become world champion. She had an unshakable confidence in her own speed, positioning herself in the leading group before beating her main rival, Anna van der Breggen, in a sprint to the line.

“Obviously I’d had a really successful season, I was the favourite going in there, whereas this season it’s a bit different,” she says. “I’ve had to be so patient and progressive with my training to really peak for this weekend, so I don’t think on results this season I’m a favourite going into this race. It’s a different kind of pressure, and having my daughter at the finish line, knowing that life will move on very quickly, win or lose, is definitely a nice perspective to have.”

Now the 30-year-old is something of an unknown quantity. She spoke to other successful sporting mothers including Jessica Ennis-Hill in order to understand how best to balance breastfeeding and bike riding, before a steadily impressive return to the sport which included a win at The Women’s Tour in June. Can she spring a surprise on Saturday? “The goal is to win it,” she says. “Whether that’s realistic, I’m not sure, but that’s the whole point of a goal, I think.”

On what is a difficult course, likely to be played out in treacherous conditions, Deignan, a Cyclo Expo Yorkshire ambassador, knows exactly when and where she will need to be in order to have a chance. “The Lofthouse climb [a sharp ascent one third of the way through the course], it’s incredibly important to be positioned well before then. It’s a bit of a bottleneck into the bottom of it, then it’s potential crosswinds over the top, so it will be essential to be near the front of the peloton at that point.”

It is not just Deignan’s knowledge of the surroundings that stands her in good stead. Crowd’s have packed the roadsides around Yorkshire this week, ignoring the rain to get a glimpse of the world’s best riders, and she knows she can count on vocal local support to carry her round.

“It’s a bit surreal, actually. It’s a moment that I’ve been thinking about for so long and suddenly it’s here, but I’m just really excited. There’s a real buzz around Harrogate. I’m a British athlete so obviously the World Championships is going to be incredibly special to me, but I think any athlete competing here will understand and remember the Yorkshire World Championships because of the atmosphere and the enthusiasm and excitement around cycling in this country. The British fans I think are the best in the world. The support will be unparalleled.”