All eyes are firmly on the Paris Olympics which get underway this weekend, with events across four different types of cycling: BMX, road, mountain biking and track.
Just because the Tour de France moved away from Paris this summer, it doesn’t mean that Parisians and the rest of the world will be forced to miss out on any elite level cycling action in the city, far from it.
In the Tour’s stead, the Olympic road races are bound to bring barnstorming action to the streets of Paris as some of the best riders in the world do battle for an Olympic gold medal. Meanwhile the velodrome is also set to provide a stage for what promises to be some of the most exciting track action ever seen at the games.
The Great Britain cycling team arrives in Paris with multiple cards to play as they go in search of medals across all of the sport’s various disciplines. Here we take a look at eight riders who we think will shine once competition gets underway.
Tom Pidcock
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Yorkshire-born Pidcock arrives in Paris in top mountain biking form. He abandoned the Tour de France due to suspected Covid, but will have made full use of the extra preparation time that provided going into the elite cross-country event at Elancourt Hill on Monday.
As reigning Olympic and World Champion, Pidcock will be heavily marked by his rivals, but that won’t get in his way as he goes head to head with the likes of Switzerland’s Nino Schurter.
Pidcock already has four victories on flat bars to his name since the turn of the year. Prior to starting the Tour de France, he won both the cross country and short track events at the Crans Montana round of the UCI World Cup.
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At the tail end of last year he also won the cross country event in Mont-Sainte-Anne in Canada after picking up the mtb rainbow bands in August.
All of this combined makes Pidcock a hot tip for a medal on Monday, maybe even another gold.
Emma Finucane
(Image credit: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com)
Emma Finucane enjoyed a breakthrough year in 2023 in which she was crowned the youngest match sprint world champion in almost 50 years.
Prior to her summer triumph in Glasgow, she won every event she competed in at the national track championships in Newport, putting her well on her way to a spot on the Great Britain track team for the Paris games.
After her success just down the road from her hometown of Carmarthen, the Welsh rider then won two silver medals at the European Championships, her first UCI gold medal at a Nations Cup event and she then saved the best until last, her maiden world title in Scotland.
With all of those achievements combined, she has the possibility of becoming the first female cyclist to win three gold medals in a single Olympic games, a feat which would instantly make her a household name.
Finucane’s races will be unmissable. Make sure you’re tuned in when the 21-year-old lines up in the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome for the first time.
Stevie Williams
(Image credit: Zac Williams/SWPix.com)
Despite a quiet time at the Tour de France, Williams thrived during the Spring, taking victory at La Flèche Wallonne which continued the excellent form that he showed in the early half of the season by winning the overall classification at the Tour down Under.
The punchy circuit in Paris suits a rider of his qualities, and Williams will be licking his lips at the sight of some of the short, sharp climbs on the menu in the 276 kilometre race. Tom Pidcock is likely to be Great Britain’s main man in the road race, but Williams will provide an excellent foil should Pidcock display any signs of mountain biking fatigue.
Race favourites Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel, and Pidcock, will be the ones to watch, but Williams could spring a surprise.
Pfeiffer Georgi
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British national champion for two consecutive years, Pfeiffer Georgi is one of many aces hidden up GB’s sleeve ahead of the women’s road race in Paris.
Just like the men’s race, the course the elite women will face is seemingly tailor made for a rider with a skillset suited to the spring Classics, something which Georgi possesses in abundance. The 23-year-old finished on the podium at Paris-Roubaix Femmes in April before narrowly missing out on third place at the Amstel Gold race.
Her climbing prowess displayed on the slopes of Saltburn Bank at the British national championships should mean that she should fly if given the opportunity to do so once the race gets underway.
Georgi will be up against the likes of Lotte Kopecky and Demi Vollering in the scrap for the medals, but that shouldn’t faze her too much.
Josh Tarling
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World Championships bronze medallist, European champion, British national champion. There’s little that Welsh phenomenon Josh Tarling can’t do on a time trial bike it would seem.
The 20-year-old was out taking time trial records on his home roads of west Wales when he was barely walking, and then progressed on to set records on his local club courses at an incredible rate.
Tarling won nine out of the ten time trials he competed in prior to signing for Ineos Grenadiers, and hasn’t looked back since, taking the European title last summer and a second British national title just a handful of weeks ago.
Tarling told Cycling Weekly that his ambitions are simple for his Olympic debut on Saturday, to “win” no matter what. Making his determination that clear will mean that Tarling is a force to be reckoned with this weekend when he rolls down an Olympic start ramp for the very first time.
Lizzie Deignan
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Lizzie Deignan is set to become the first female British cyclist to compete at four successive Olympic games when she takes to the road race course a week on Sunday.
Deignan took a silver medal at London 2012, before competing in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, and at the rearranged games in Tokyo in 2021. Despite her status, it’s possible that the 35-year-old will not lead the GB team as they get set to attempt to get a rider onto the podium once more.
Instead, Deignan may be called upon to support the likes of Georgi, Anna Henderson and Anna Morris. Nevertheless, should some of her younger teammates miss a select move that gets away, then you can bet on Deignan being present.
The Lidl-Trek star made the eventual winning move in the road race last August at the World Championships and was right in contention for a medal all the way down to the wire in Glasgow.
She was forced to settle for sixth last August, but Deignan will certainly be a dark horse for the podium this time round.
Dan Bigham
(Image credit: Getty Images / Rene Nijhuis)
Three years ago, Dan Bigham was at the Olympics in Tokyo, but not as an athlete.
The now 32-year-old was present in Japan working as an engineer and aerodynamicist for the Danish track team after finding himself at a crossroads in his track cycling career. Bigham was told he needed to choose between being an engineer or a rider, he chose the former at that point.
Now Bigham finds himself back in a skinsuit and back in a velodrome as a rider in Paris. His journey in the sport has been remarkable in recent years, with two record breaking hour records set and other significant milestones passed.
In 2022 Bigham became a world champion in the team pursuit and claimed two European gold medals. Alongside his teammates, he now stands on the cusp of helping Great Britain reclaim the men’s team pursuit title that they were forced to give up in Tokyo after controlling the event in the last three games.
Bigham took a silver medal in the individual pursuit behind Filippo Ganna at last summer’s combined worlds in Scotland, but this year could provide Bigham with his biggest moment yet.
Anna Henderson
(Image credit: SWPix.com)
Fresh off the back of winning the female British national time trial title for a second time, Henderson will compete in both the road race and race against the clock for Great Britain.
She had previously won the national champion’s jersey in 2021, and claimed it again once more in Redcar and Cleveland in mid-June. She has been working in the wind tunnel in the run-up to this Games, and should be in contention for the TT podium.
As well as winning her national time trial title, Henderson has proven herself to be in stellar form on the road, taking second overall at the Tour of Britain Women behind Kopecky ahead of going up against the Belgian once more in Paris.
The 25-year-old from Hemel Hempstead could prove to be an excellent deputy to either Georgi or Deignan in the road race and could well get her own opportunity should the racing situation provide it.
Either way, the Great Britain women’s team for the road race is packed full of quality. Anna Henderson’s presence takes it a step above once more.
