Lizzie Deignan: I've got another year in me at the highest level
How a delayed flight sparked initial thoughts of retirement and her aims for the final year of her career
Having your flight delayed, and then diverted before being forced to take a 220-mile taxi ride home at two in the morning would have most of us questioning our life choices. Lizzie Deignan is no exception.
Heading home from a team training camp earlier this year, Deignan’s plane was held back and then sent to Glasgow instead of Leeds, leading two an almost four-hour drive back to her home. Exhausted, and disoriented, it was the next morning when the notion of retirement began to percolate inside the rider’s head for the first time.
“You should never make decisions when you’re exhausted, so it wasn’t a snap decision,” Deignan tells us.
“It was an all-nighter. I was just exhausted and the next day I took a moment to think, ‘Do I want this anymore, do I want to feel like this and can I sustain it?’ I realised that I couldn’t and then came to terms with that during this season. It was almost time to stop but the opportunity to do more one season where I don’t have personal ambition but want to motivate and help out the other women is something that motivates me,” she adds.