{"id":660323,"date":"2026-06-27T01:26:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T01:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/660323\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T01:26:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T01:26:20","slug":"were-one-of-the-strongest-road-nations-in-the-world-lizzie-deignan-returns-to-british-cycling-as-directeur-sportif","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/660323\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWe\u2019re one of the strongest road nations in the world\u201d: Lizzie Deignan returns to British Cycling as directeur sportif"},"content":{"rendered":"

Almost a year after her retirement from professional cycling, Lizzie Deignan has returned to the Great Britain Cycling Team as directeur sportif.<\/p>\n

Deignan is one of Britain\u2019s most successful cyclists. She is an Olympic silver medal winner and 2015 road world champion, who will bring over 20 years experience in professional cycling to the role.<\/p>\n

She will work with the men\u2019s and women\u2019s cycling teams and will play a pivotal role in supporting the road squad as they prepare for the LA 2028 Olympic Games.<\/p>\n

‘Excited’
\n\"LizzieLizzie Deignan racing for Team GB at the 2023 world championships. SWpix<\/p>\n

Deignan says she is \u201cexcited\u201d to work with the Team GB cyclists: \u201cI believe we\u2019re one of the strongest road nations in the world. It\u2019s been over 10 years since my world title so it\u2019s time for us to step into our potential and deliver more rainbow jerseys!\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always a proud moment to represent your country \u2013 my aim is to help each rider who does that achieve their maximum performance with the best possible support.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

British Cycling says the Paris\u2013Roubaix Femme winner<\/a>\u2019s recruitment is part of several \u201cstrategic tactics\u201d intended to build on the success of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, where British cyclists won a total of 11 medals.<\/p>\n

Performance director for the Great Britain Cycling Team, Stephen Park CBE says: \u201cThroughout her career, Lizzie has brought so much to the Great Britain Cycling Team, both in her performance successes but also in her insight, advocacy and general attitude and positivity within the team.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s now incredibly exciting to see her wanting to continue to contribute to the success of the team from the team car, so to speak. Having a rider return to the programme beyond their racing career is a true testament to their relationship with the programme and I know that Lizzie\u2019s input will be invaluable as we move ever closer to LA 2028.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Deignan retired in July 2025 after confirming she was pregnant with her third child.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Almost a year after her retirement from professional cycling, Lizzie Deignan has returned to the Great Britain Cycling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":660324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-660323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}