British superstar talent Cat Ferguson taking the peloton by storm: "I learned the most I could today"
Cycling
At just 18 years old, Cat Ferguson is already establishing herself as one of the brightest young talents in the women’s peloton. Her podium at Trofeo Alfredo Binda was an early marker of intent, and yesterday at the Classic Brugge–De Panne, she added another impressive display to her growing résumé, this time with a solo break that lasted over 30 kilometres.
Ultimately, the effort didn’t deliver a result. Lorena Wiebes sprinted to victory, while Ferguson was caught by the bunch. But the performance was nonetheless full of talet, and a clear signal that the British rider is not afraid to take the race on.
Speaking to Felix Mattis after the finish, Ferguson reflected on the challenge of staying ahead of a charging peloton with such a slender advantage.
"I was told it was only around 15, 20 seconds, so I was trying not to look back because I knew how little that gap was," she said. "It needed to be more for it to stay in the final. On a better day, hopefully, I could make the gap bigger, but I'm a little bit ill and have had a few days off since the last race. No excuses, but I will try again next time."
For Ferguson, the experience wasn’t just about tactics or results. The solo break became a lesson in resilience and determination, and a chance to push her mental limits on the road.
"You learn a lot being out at the front, mentally – how to push yourself and to keep going when I knew my gap was 20 seconds for the whole time. So I think, for sure, I learned the most I could today."
That learning process also included practical gains. Being out in front gave her the rare opportunity to work on her aerodynamics and time trialling, key skills for a rider looking to develop in all areas of the sport.
"It's so important, especially in a flat race like this," Ferguson said. "The wind's not super strong today, but aero is everything, especially when it's just you, solo in a breakaway. I had a big focus on keeping my head down as much as I could."
With her debut season in the pro ranks already off to a promising start, Ferguson now looks ahead to the next block of races, which will test her across a wide range of terrain and challenges.
"Next, I have Gent-Wevelgem on Sunday," she explained. "And then I do Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Brabant and Flèche, and then sort of a rest after the Belgian Classics."
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- i wouldn't count Pogi out. Low probability of a win, but not impossiblemobk01-04-2025
- Right now it doesn't seem that his legs are there or that his head is in the racevappaxbipmv01-04-2025
- would have been nice to hear exactly WHY he thinks pog has zero chance in some greater detail. i mean, tend to agree that his chances aren’t GREAT, but some explanation from the expert with an opinion would be nice. MINE is that, in spite of the recon he did where tadej concluded that the course “wasn’t that hard” i think that doing the full route at full gas is really going to beat up pogacar’s 145lb body, to a degree that he maybe isn’t expecting. but hey, we’ll see in a couple weeks. like everyone else, i do think it’s supercool that he’s going.OCexile01-04-2025
- Go back to that era and look at the lousy mechanicals he's had at Paris-Roubaix. Take those away, maybe he has another Monument, Van der Poel has one less, and suddenly all the rules change. Those mechanicals preceded his awful crashes - and you're right, that Tour was amazing. Ventoux, TT, and Champs-Elysees?! Something that Pogacar and Van der Poel can't do, just Wout. It still amazes me.RidesHills01-04-2025
- Oh, the impossibility of this kind of comparison. A pre-WW2 Binda had amazing statistics, and that was one era. During what I think of as the romantic era, Poulidor had an incredible run at the Tour without winning, and Bobet won some grand tours and some Monuments. In this modern era (for me: after Hinault), we've had multiple Monument winners win a grand tour (such as Valverde and Kelly, with Kelly the better rider in general), and then we've got someone like Roglic, the true GC rider. Sure there was a Monument that was kind of a fluke (both Pogacar and Hirschi might have won, and twitchy Alaphilippe deserved relegation), but what matters are the 5 grand tours and all these wins across the 1 week GC races except for the Tour de Suisse (you'd think he'd race it to get the set of them all). In this era, since 2000 or so, maybe he meets the description as best non-Tour winner. How many GC riders have these wins and not the Tour? To compare to other eras really is not possible. He's his own unique rider, and it's been amazing watching him for the past many years. That's about all we can say.RidesHills01-04-2025
- Ease up on a brother!bobo01-04-2025
- Primoz finds ways to win. Too bad he'll never take Tour de France.awp01-04-2025
- I don't think I would ever count Wout van Aert out of a race if his head is in it. He is a serious talent.awp01-04-2025
- He's a great rider for sure, not sure if he the best to never win the Tour though.awp01-04-2025
- Hard to imagine that his confidence - that imperious flow state that great athletes operate in - hasn't been affected. But that is a different dynamic than the one you described. He has not become hesitant because he is fixated on his rival. He has suffered multiple traumatic injuries, and I have no doubt he is still 1% off both mentally and physically as a result. Football (both kinds) and basketball players who blow out knees go through a predictable cycle in which they are reluctant to do max efforts even after their doctors have cleared them. I myself went though a small version of that after a back injury. It's just hard once you no longer know where the line is. We saw in his TT a couple weeks ago that he still has power, and for all the hand wringing he is still finishing in the top 10-20 of big races. But as we have seen with others, getting *all* the way back is not assured. I'm not ready to say he is done, but few riders who have been hurt as often and as badly as him remain at the top.MidnightRider01-04-2025