Big Interview: Leeds cycling star Lizzie Deignan's stellar career, retirement, new role and LA Olympics aim

In the latest of our big interview features, Lee Sobot goes to see Otley's former world champion and London 2012 Olympic silver medallist Lizzie Deignan, the GB cycling star and now young mum of three who announced her retirement last year following the birth of her third child Enya. Lizzie received a Lifetime Achievement Award at this year's Leeds Sports Awards.

Lizzie, good to see you, let's start with the Leeds Sports Awards. You had a stellar career winning a host of medals and titles but what did it mean to you to get a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Leeds Sports Awards?

"It was a bit of a pinch me moment really. It made me feel quite old! I remember going when I was younger when I lived in the UK when I lived in Leeds and getting the invite to go.I think I got the young sports person award. To have my full career, move away from home, then come back to my roots, it was quite a nice way of recognising the fact that I've moved home and the career has finished. It was special and I never expected that I'd be honoured with a lifetime achievement award. It was really nice. I am a proud Leeds girl, definitely. There's a real cycling community in this area as well and the fact that I am from here definitely had an impact on my career. I received so much support, not just in cycling but in all sorts of sports, growing up as a kid in this city, volunteers, community, it's all so important when you are an athlete and where you are from has a massive impact on that because I was lucky enough to be from what I consider to be a sporting city."

You're obviously an Otley girl Lizzie but the city of Leeds clearly means a lot to you too so where does Leeds also come into it?

"I guess when you move abroad people ask you where you are from and of course you don't say Otley, you say Leeds! Because people recognise it, they know what you are talking about, Leeds United, Leeds Rhinos. If it's not Leeds United or Leeds Rhinos it's somebody else. To me it's just a sporting city."

And as you have just received a Lifetime Achievement Award, what do you consider the greatest achievement in your career Lizzie as there's plenty to pick from?

"I think really there's no sort of on-bike and off-bike experience that will ever compare to London 2012. I grew up in a non-cycling family but I was always obsessed with the Olympics growing up. So to be an Olympian and to come away with a medal, the first for your country in a home Games was just hard to put into words really. It was an experience I'll never get again and I almost couldn't absorb all of the experience in that one time. It was similar enough to how you feel on your wedding day, like you can't absorb it all, and you'd love to just relive it over and over again, because it's overstimulating, all the experiences in one time. It was just a phenomenal day. It was so special and I'm just so grateful that I got to experience that because it's career defining but it's also life defining, a really life changing moment. To be racing down The Mall in front of the Queen. I like to think she was watching out of her window. It's sort of fairy-tale stuff really."

That was the first of four Olympics for you which is some feat no?

"Yeah, I think that's really impressive! To have a career that's lasted at the top of my sport, 16 years with two children in the middle of that as well. It makes me really proud."

Definitely, did you ever consider retiring earlier Lizzie or on the flip side keeping going a bit later?! Did you have to wrestle with the decision at all?

"No I didn't! I really didn't have to wrestle with it. I think if I'm really honest, I probably did a season too long. But I think it's better that way than the athletes who retire and think have I got anything left? I simply didn't have anything left. Cycling is one of the hardest sports in the world. You are racing almost every weekend from spring through to summer and it takes its toll physically and mentally on your family life et cetera. It was just time for me to kind of put that behind me and focus on everyone else really."

Going back to the very start then Lizzie can you remember how it all began and why?

"Yeah and it was literally a life-changing decision for me. I was good at all sports, did everything. I was in all the school teams but I was never the best at anything. And then one summer day Talent Team it was called, in 2004 I think they came, I was 15, they came to my school Prince Henry's with a van full of bikes. There were a talent identification programme and my PE teacher said to me, 'Lizzie, they're going to be here today, they're doing some like tests on the school field, have a go, so what you think'. So I turned up to the test to skip double maths, like that was the incentive, not the cycling part of it! And luckily for me, one of my oldest school friends from primary school Richard Robinson, he said to me, 'Lizzie, I bet you can't beat me' and only because of Richard did I take it seriously and race him, otherwise I would have just tootled around with some of my friends and got of lessons. Luckily, he tapped into my competitive instinct, and from that moment, I was talent spotted and taken through. Simple things like I was given a bike, I was given £500 of lottery funding. If I had not been given those two things, I don't think I would have taken up the sport because it's quite an expensive sport to begin with. I was just very, very fortunate that they came to my school. Also I wasn't the only female medallist in London who had come from the talent programme. I think there was three of us across all the disciplines - Dani Rowe was one them in team pursuit and Joanna Rowsell in team pursuit too - so it definitely worked."

That's a great story, what else were you particularly good at? Could we have seen Lizzie the 100m sprinter for example?

"I was a good 800m runner. I represented Leeds. Leeds is a twin city with Dortmund and I represented Leeds at an athletics meet in Dortmund. I played county netball, things like that. But was I never the best. I was making up teams rather than leading teams."

When did you know that it you really going places in the sport then - the first big moment sort of thing?

"It kind of escalated quite quickly. I was chipping away at British races, not really getting anywhere but I started to quit some of my other sports and cycling became a bit more of a focus for me and I went to the Junior World Championships and I got a silver medal in the scratch race on the track as a track rider. And that was the moment where I was kind of having to face the decision of do I try to go to university like my friends? Do I get a job or do I move to Manchester and try and become an Olympic track rider? I obviously chose the track option."

It was certainly the right option! So how did life change after winning a silver medal at London 2012?

"It was life changing, definitely. People at home would recognise me. I remember going to the corner shop in Otley and they'd got this well done Lizzie card and it had been signed by like 500 local people who'd been in and out for a pint of milk of whatever. Just small touches like that. I realise I'd had an impact on my local community because they were able to watch it. Also like from a financial perspective, I was a British cyclist, a female cyclist, being a professional, I wasn't earning money. But from then on I started getting sponsors from Olympic partners and things like that so it was quite defining in that way. It enabled me to become a real professional in my sport and obviously women's cycling has changed dramatically since then. You can really become a professional athlete but back then I needed to rely on other sponsors and that's what I got out of London."

And then three years later you became world champion in 2015 - so how did that compare to the Olympics?

"I think in cycling it's particularly special because of the rainbow jersey and the fact that you get to wear that rainbow jersey for the rest of the season. You get a rainbow bike, we really milk it in cycling! In the cycling community it's probably more prestigious than an Olympic medal because to become world champion you have to beat everyone in the world whereas in the Olympics, the way the selection criteria goes, it's a smaller peloton and not everyone's there whereas in the World Championships you've beaten everyone in the world. It was an amazing achievement."

As was being a nominee for that year's Sports Personality of the Year Award Lizzie. What was that like? Alongside Andy Murray, Kevin Sinfield, Jess Ennis-Hill, Lewis Hamilton, Mo Farah, Tyson Fury - talk about a star studded line up?!

"It was really surreal, for all sorts of reasons. Crazily enough, my husband was on a training camp at the time and he got hit by a car the same day. He broke his elbow and his shoulder and all sorts. And then you're on national television on a stage and being interviewed by Gary Lineker. I was sat next to Tyson Fury and his wife. She was pregnant at the time and I remember she had this big family size Dairy Milk and she was just chomping away at that. I took my school friend and she's a massive Rhinos fan and she met Sir Kevin Sinfield as he is now and there was the afterparty with all the Rhinos players and Andy Murray with his mum, it was really surreal."

You mention your husband there Lizzie, Philip Deignan, himself a cyclist too, so the sport has brought you so much and also your husband too?! Where did you meet?

"It was in 2014, actually through some mutual Irish friends. They were having a birthday party and invited us both to the same bar and I ended up talking to him for hours. I didn't really cotton on that the people around us who were like, 'oh right, what's going on there then.' I was like, 'oh I don't know!' It took a couple of months and a bit of dating between races, because we were both so busy racing all the time and then eventually that summer we got together. We both lived on Monaco for about 10-15 years. We were both there when we got together. Phil is from Donegal in Ireland, we'd had Orla our eldest child and then we had Shea and then it was time for Orla to start school. You obviously start to think about where you want to settle long term and England beat Ireland to that!"

And now you are back home as a young mum of three Lizzie so how is life now?

"I'm really happy. I really love it. I love being back home. People say don't you miss Monaco but not at all. It served a purpose. It was very much about making the best of a short career and this is home. I just love being back here. I love the countryside, I love the people, I love being close to my family and I also just feel really grateful that I was able to build a life alongside my career. A lot of athletes get to the end of their career and it's like a cliff edge and it's like what's next? But you don't really have the chance to kind of get bored or sit in your own thoughts for too long if you've got three kids so I feel really grateful that my husband supported me coming back after the two kids and I could continue my career alongside motherhood. That's made a difference in the way I approach retirement I think."

So what's next for you Lizzie? News this week of a new role within British Cycling for you?

"It only got announced this week but I will be British Cycling's new Directeur Sportif, which basically means that I'll be in the car coaching the women at the under 23 and Elite level at the Europeans, World Championships and Olympics. So kind of the tactician essentially of what we do in races. I'm excited by that. I approached British Cycling and said that it's something I wanted to do because in my career I'd often be doing it as a rider anyway. I was the one in the meetings saying what I thought should happen. I felt like it makes sense that I do it as a staff member now. It's a great way for me to stay involved in the sport but without the commitment of being in a professional team where you're on the road for 150 days. I don't want to do that anymore. I want to be at home. So to just commit to sort of three major events a year is a perfect balance really. Hopefully I will be in LA at the Olympics in 2028 and can carry on going to the Olympics. It will be cool."

And how will you feel when the 2028 Olympics comes around? And what is the future for cycling looking like?

"I'm hoping to make the wound a bit less painful by being there in a different role. I think those major events, as an athlete, those were what inspired me. All the races in between, I don't miss being an athlete. But in the World Championships and in the Olympics I will definitely be wishing I was on the bike. But I'll be in the team car in the race giving the riders advice on how we can win another medal which will be really nice because the next generation of women that we have got are really strong. There's a real opportunity to get a medal. The future is bright and there's a girl called Kat Ferguson who is from Skipton and she is the next big star, definitely."

The big stars will also be coming to Leeds next year Lizzie when the Tour De France starts there - what will that be like? Twelve years on from the last Grand Depart from Yorkshire.

"I think that might be the first time where I anticipate I'll be jealous! I think I'll be like 'I wish I was still racing' because it will be an amazing opportunity to be a British rider riding the Tour De France in Leeds. I remember in 2014 wishing there was a women's race because there wasn't a womens' race at that point. Obviously the sport has moved now and it came a bit too late for me."

You might be tempted to get back in the saddle then?!

"There's no come back left! The third baby has killed me off! Killed off that dream!"

So just lastly Lizzie, what would you say to any aspiring young athletes in Leeds in cycling or any other sports - youngsters who have dreams like you did?

"I think all you have to do is be open-minded and say yes to opportunities. Particularly as a young person now. There's so much pressure to know what you want to do so early and it's just about saying yes and also never consider yourself not to be good at sport. You just haven't found the right sport. Just keep trying different sports until you find your people and your sport. If I'd have not have said yes my life would look very, very different now."