Female Rider Of The Year

A year like no other, but either side of the virus lockdown, GB women excelled on road and track at the highest level In association with Lezyne

5 LUCY VAN DER HAAR

It was a long time coming for the former junior world champion (then Lucy Garner) – nearly five years since she last crossed the line with her hands in the air. But that’s exactly what she did at the UAE Tour’s first stage to devastating effect. She became the only British woman to win a stage race in 2020.

The emotion after that first win was clear to see. “It was like finally I was doing it for me. I had trained really hard for it and everything came together, which I felt previous years it hadn’t. That’s why I was so emotional, I just couldn’t control it,” she told Cycling Weekly in March.

After several seasons at WiggleHigh5, often overlooked as other riders got selection, it was only when she moved to Hitec Products last year that her mojo returned.

This autumn van der Haar announced she would be retiring at the end of 2020, that win and “regaining that spark,” as she put it, had clearly been enough. It was time to go out on a high.

4 EMILY MEAKIN

Meakin should have spent much of this season racing abroad with Drops. You know why that didn’t happen. But rather than lick her wounds she refocused on being the most dominant woman on the British time trial scene. First up was the National 10-mile Championship where she saw off team-mate Alex Clay by just 12 seconds. A pretty good result considering that until then she had not ridden a 10-mile event in 2020. She wasn’t able to defend her 25-mile title from 2019, however, being bested on the day by Drops team-mate Joss Lowden.