The largest day of Cat Ferguson’s profession to this point started with an ungodly serving to of rice. It was 5am when the 18-year-old’s alarm sounded in Zurich, Switzerland, two hours earlier than the solar was set to rise. At 10am, she would begin the junior street race on the UCI World Championships. It was the occasion Ferguson had thought of every single day within the 13 months since she completed runner-up in Glasgow. First, although, beneath a blanket of darkness, she needed to get by way of her breakfast of champions: a bowl of rice, measured out to 6 occasions the really helpful portion measurement. “It’s onerous once you’ve bought to get up after which chow down 400g of rice,” she says, laughing on the reminiscence. “That’s the toughest bit.”
A month on, Ferguson’s sitting on a plastic chair reverse me remembering the day from inside London’s Lee Valley Velodrome. The street race in Zurich lasted fewer than two hours, and by noon, {the teenager} was topped world champion. She’s wearing her spoils from that morning – a rainbow jersey, which she selected to maintain on after the photoshoot. The package’s so new, she says, that it’s “nonetheless bought the tags on”.
Ferguson’s street world title was her fourth in what she seems to be again on as a “excellent season” in 2024. It got here two days after she gained the time trial, securing a momentous double, and a month after she gained two gold medals on the monitor. So supremely constant was the Yorkshire-born teenager’s yr that she didn’t end off the rostrum in a race till September, incomes two nationwide titles and her first skilled victories. Her agent, Jamie Barlow, has dubbed her a “generational expertise” – “the section will get handed round an excessive amount of, however Cat actually is one,” he mentioned. Elsewhere, The Occasions referred to as Ferguson “British biking’s subsequent star”. After I repeat these accolades to her, she turns bashful. “It’s a bit bit surreal,” Ferguson says. “To me, I’m only a bike rider. It’s pretty that they’re saying these issues about me, however I nearly don’t imagine it myself.”
(Picture credit score: Simon Wilkinson/SWpix.com)
After a standout first junior season final yr, successful at 16 years outdated on her GB debut, Ferguson started 2024 with the purpose of amassing her first rainbow jersey. She nearly had one as early as February, when 5 seconds separated her from gold on the Cyclocross World Championships. Her subsequent alternative could be the Observe World Championships, and by the point it got here round in August, Ferguson was on a sizzling streak. She had gained one-day and stage races at will, discovering time to take a seat her A-Stage exams within the spring. Then got here the journey to the velodrome in Louyang, China, the place she had two brushes with catastrophe.
The primary got here within the workforce pursuit, when she by accident unclipped her foot in qualifying and crashed, hoping for a restart. “They didn’t give us one. I simply sat there along side the monitor,” she chuckles on the reminiscence. Twenty-four hours later, all was forgotten when she and her teammates rode to gold, her first world title, in a world-record time. “It was all the pieces that us 4 might have dreamed of,” she says.
Ferguson’s second shut name got here within the Omnium. It’s a day she has since described as “some of the mentally difficult” of her profession. She crashed onerous within the penultimate occasion, the elimination race, and partially dislocated her shoulder. Recounting the story, she lifts her hand to the joint. “I simply type of slipped it again in,” she smiles, leaving out the element that she then bought again on her bike and gained. “I didn’t even have time to go placed on a brand new pores and skin swimsuit,” she says. “I used to be racing the factors race with holes in all places.” Bloody kneed, she banked her second world title, and raised her arms skywards.
(Picture credit score: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com)
Ferguson’s entire season, in actuality, was geared in the direction of two days in Zurich. By no means earlier than had she felt expectation like she did going into the Street World Championships, most of it from herself. She recollects the time trial final yr, when her nerves grew so intense she threw up mid-race – “I used to be bodily sick onto my arms” – finally ending tenth. This yr was a unique story. In coaching, the Brit rode simulation after simulation of the route alongside Lake Zurich, and turned up on the day alongside teammate Imogen Wolff, who helped calm her down. “We have been simply pretending that we weren’t the place we have been, that we have been some other place on vacation,” Ferguson laughs. The completely satisfied ideas labored, and she scored her third rainbow jersey with a cushty 35-second buffer. “I didn’t simply win, however I gained fairly properly,” she says modestly. There was no time for celebration, although. Two sleeps later, she was again on the beginning line, this time within the occasion she wished most.
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Given her kind, Ferguson was all the time the clear favorite for the street race. “It was nearly a very good factor I got here second in Glasgow,” she says. “It made me extremely hungry for Zurich, and I instructed myself, so long as I didn’t let it have an effect on me to the purpose the place I bought so nervous that I couldn’t give it some thought, then it was good motivation, if that is smart?”
Rain lashed down onto the course that morning. The situations suited Ferguson, a gritty cyclocross rider with a Yorkshire upbringing and a bellyful of rice. Into the finale, she was adopted by two riders, who compelled her to guide the dash from the entrance. “I simply keep in mind crossing the end line and placing my arms up within the air,” she says.
(Picture credit score: Getty Photos)
Earlier than {the teenager} might attain her mother and father past the gantry, she was already in tears. “I believe that reminiscence will stick with me perpetually,” she says. “It’s particular to win a World Champs, however to win one after which see my mum and pa, who’ve been there with me from the beginning of my biking profession…” the emotion is clear in her voice. “I’m extremely grateful to them.”
Ferguson was six years outdated when her mother and father purchased her her first street bike. The present didn’t come simply. “I believe they made me do 25 bike rides on some not-very-good bike I had earlier than, after which write a e-book, like a 10-page e-book,” she says. “That was my first and final e-book.”
Her creator days behind her, Ferguson subsequent turned to slalom snowboarding. She educated on dry slopes close to her dwelling in Yorkshire, and on the snow on Alpe d’Huez, the place her household had a chalet, finally competing on the Junior European Championships on the age of 12. Deep down, although, a ardour for biking was already brewing. Spurred on by her mother and father, she had pedalled up many of the Alpe’s 21 hairpins when she was simply eight years outdated. Now, as she prepares to show skilled subsequent season, it’s her flip to guide the encouragement. “My dad’s simply purchased an e-bike so he can come out and prepare with me,” she smiles.
(Picture credit score: Zac Williams/SWpix.com)
When junior riders signal for knowledgeable workforce, it’s frequent for them to race as a stagiaire, or intern, forward of the season beginning. Profitable in these first trial occasions is unprecedented, however when Ferguson made her Movistar debut in September, and completed second, she regarded destined to defy the chances. Virtually a fortnight later, that breakthrough got here on the AG Tour de la Semois. “I used to be by no means the plan. It type of simply occurred,” she says with a shrug.
{The teenager} was dropped 4 occasions on stage one of many Belgian race. “In some way I used to be nonetheless there on the finish,” she says, “so that they did a lead-out for me”. It was the same story 11 days on, when, the youngest rider on the 143-strong begin listing, she gained Binche Chimay Binche. There, the victory felt much more spectacular, prevailing in a cobbled dash forward of dsm-firmenich PostNL’s Charlotte Kool, who gained two phases of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift in the summertime.
“I’m nonetheless questioning how I managed to be the primary over the road,” Ferguson says, and begins making excuses for her opponents. “Charlotte had a little bit of a problem within the race. She nearly crashed and unclipped her foot within the dash.” The victory made it two wins from 4 in her first professional race days, a feat that left her standing together with her fingers on her head by the end line. “That is completely not what I anticipated,” she mentioned on the time. “I’m right here simply to be taught, I’m nonetheless a junior.”
Ferguson nonetheless echoes that feeling immediately, as she prepares to maneuver to Girona firstly of her first full season as a professional. The largest race on her calendar subsequent yr is Liège-Bastogne-Liège, she reveals, with the workforce clear to present her time to develop. “I don’t wish to rush something,” {the teenager} says, an adamant timbre to her voice. “After the street worlds, I used to be watching the junior males’s race, and I used to be stood with a girl from America, the primary winner of the Olympics street race.” What was Connie Carpenter’s recommendation to her? “The very first thing she mentioned to me was to not rush it, to take it actually gradual, and that positively has caught with me, and I believe it should.
“I believe it’s actually necessary to do not forget that I’m solely 18. I’ve gained knowledgeable race, even when it was a smaller one, however I believe as a precedence, I wish to have success as an elite, not simply after I’m a junior. I wish to take it gradual and do all the pieces proper with a view to make that occur.”
This characteristic initially appeared in Biking Weekly journal on fifth December 2024. Subscribe now and by no means miss a problem.