Cat Ferguson was just 16 years old when she made her Nations Cup debut at the Piccolo Trofeo Alfredo Binda in March. In her first year of A-levels, she had just joined GB’s junior academy and was gearing up for her first road race with the squad. She was nervous, of course she was nervous, but there was no real pressure to perform. The race was twice as long as she was used to, and moreover, some of the riders on the start list were two years older than her.
“I was hoping to maybe get in the front group, and maybe get a top 10,” she tells Cycling Weekly. So you can imagine her surprise when she went and won the thing.
“It was quite a shock,” Ferguson, who has now turned 17, says. With 40km to go, she tore clear from the pack, together with