Former world champion Lizzie Deignan, one of Britain’s greatest ever riders, is set to return to the Great Britain Cycling Team as a sports director, British Cycling announced on Friday.
The 37-year-old, who retired from the sport with immediate effect last July after revealing that she was pregnant with her third child, will work with men’s and women’s road cycling lead Matt Brammeier as the team builds up to the 2028 LA Olympics.
In a statement, British Cycling said Deignan will “play a pivotal role” in supporting the road squad at major events through to the LA Games, where the latest crop of British talent, including Cat Ferguson, Tom Pidcock, Zoe Bäckstedt, and Oscar Onley, will be aiming for medal success.
Deignan’s 2015 world road race title in Richmond remains the last time a British rider pulled on a rainbow jersey in a road event.
Only Anna Henderson (silver in the time trial at the 2024 Paris Games) and Chris Froome (time trial bronze medallist at Rio 2016) have won medals at Olympic Games since 2012, when Deignan won silver in the road race behind Marianne Vos and Bradley Wiggins won the men’s time trial.
According to British Cycling, Deignan’s appointment forms part of British Cycling’s bid to “take the strongest and most prepared team to the LA start lines”.
“I’m excited about the opportunity to work with a strong and talented group of riders; I believe we’re one of the strongest road nations in the world,” Deignan said in a statement.
“It’s been over 10 years since my world title so it’s time for us to step into our potential and deliver more rainbow jerseys!
“It’s always a proud moment to represent your country. My aim is to help each rider who does that achieve their maximum performance with the best possible support.”
GB road lead Brammeier added: “Bringing Lizzie into the team is a real coup. Having only recently retired from the bunch, she has so much insight and knowledge into both GB’s riders and the opposition.
“She also understands how we work as a team first-hand and can support and advise on how to get the best out of our riders on race day.
“Beyond that, Lizzie is a true legend of the sport and has directly inspired some of our future stars to want to follow in her footsteps, so to be working alongside her will be a real joy for them. Most importantly, she is just incredibly passionate about the sport and seeing Great Britain achieve success at the highest level and that shines through above everything.”
Deignan, then known as Lizzie Armitstead, turned pro with Team Halfords Bikehut in 2008, eventually taking 43 professional victories during a glittering career, including the 2015 world road race championships, the Tour of Flanders, Strade Bianche, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Trofeo Alfredo Binda, two editions of the Women’s Tour of Britain, La Course by Le Tour, and the inaugural edition of Paris-Roubaix Femmes in 2021, her final individual win.
After a promising start to her career, which included three consecutive stage victories at the 2010 Tour Cycliste Féminin International de l’Ardèche, Deignan announced herself as one of the world’s leading riders at the 2012 Olympic road race in London, where she finished second to Marianne Vos.
In 2015, she secured arguably the biggest win of her career, outsprinting Anna van der Breggen in Richmond, before following that up with a sensational, world-beating spring in 2016, when she established herself as the best rider in the peloton.
In the rainbow jersey, Deignan was on fire in the classics, winning Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Strade Bianche, Trofeo Alfredo Binda, and the Tour of Flanders, before winning a stage and the overall at the Women’s Tour.
Her 2016 was to end in controversy and acrimony, however, when the news broke that she had been provisionally suspended after missing three doping tests within a year and was facing a four-year ban.
But arguing that the first whereabouts failure was the fault of the anti-doping authorities, and not herself, the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) cleared her to compete at the Rio Olympics, where she had been heavily tipped but ended up finishing fifth.
Deignan then become a trailblazer within the sport, after returning following the birth of daughter Orla in 2018, going on to win the Women’s Tour the next season and Liège-Bastogne-Liège and La Course in 2020, the year she topped the Women’s WorldTour rankings.
And the following autumn, she secured arguably her most memorable victory, winning the first ever edition of Paris-Roubaix Femmes with a stunning, iconic long-range solo attack in grisly conditions.
She also missed the 2022 season due to the arrival of son Shea, but came back to the sport once again with Lidl-Trek, where she transitioned into a new role as a domestique and road captain, sharing her experience with the squad’s younger riders.
With retirement pencilled in for the end of 2025 and after one final victory, shared with her teammates in the opening team time trial of the Vuelta a España – indicative of her new approach to the sport – Deignan raced on home roads for the final time at the Tour of Britain last year.
In July 2025, Deignan unexpectedly announced that she and husband, and former pro, Phil were expecting their third child and that she would be retiring from the sport with immediate effect. Baby Enya was born earlier this year and Deignan is set to cover next month’s Tour de France as part of Ned Boulting’s For the Love of Cycling podcast, before taking up her new role at Team GB.
“Throughout 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,” GB performance director Stephen Park said today.
“It’s 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’s input will be invaluable as we move ever closer to LA 2028.”
