"My last season was definitely not what I’d hoped for" - Cat Ferguson will skip cyclocross this winter to focus on road

Cat Ferguson made a stunning entry into the world of professional cycling, winning a stage at the Tour of Britain and the Navarra Classic. The 19-year-old immediately found her spot in the Movistar's elite women team. However what didn't go well for the young Brit was the cyclocross winter after which Ferguson came to the painful decision to not ride cyclocross the upcoming winter and prioritize her road preparation.

"I’ve grown up on lots of different bikes, and I really enjoyed that, and I would recommend that to anyone to try all different bikes," she told Cycling Weekly. "I think, for me, road is my priority and also my favourite type of cycling. I was doing track and also cyclo-cross before, but I have made the decision for next year to just do road."

For now, Ferguson will close the door for the off-road disciplines, but she's not giving her final farewell to cyclo-cross nor track yet. "It’s not that I’ll never come back to either of them. I’m 100% sure that I will come back to one of them. But for me, it was something I would have done eventually in my career, just focusing on one discipline, and I’ve chosen to do that now."

What boosted this decision was a mediocre 2024/25 cyclocross season where Ferguson's best international result was a 13th place at the under-23 World Championships. "My last cross season was definitely not what I’d hoped for," she said, "and I didn’t want to end it, partly because I didn’t want to seem like I was giving up on it after a bad season, but within that season, I had no preparation for the races, and that’s not me."

After all, it's in her nature to always perform on maximum. "If I’m going to do something, I want to do it 100%, so for me it was either I really commit and do a full cyclo-cross calendar and start much earlier than I did last year, or I don’t do it and I fully focus on road," the Brit added. "If I miss it, and I still have the desire to do it and want to commit to it 100% as well, then I’ll do that next year."

Despite only just maturing from the juniors category, Ferguson found the transition to senior category quite fluent, especially when given the role to be the leader herself. "To be honest, I’ve found the times when I’ve had to race myself [as a leader] much more easy to deal with, but then when I’m racing with the team, and it’s pressure I’m putting on myself to perform for someone else, that’s something that I’m still learning to deal with,"

Next week, Ferguson will be one of the big hitters at the starting line of the under-23 World road Championships in Kigali. In the fierce competition, Ferguson will be definitely among the main candidates to bring home a medal.

"Of course, I would love to be in the top five, that would probably be a goal," she said. “I’ve never done an under-23 race, so I think there’s a lot of unknown things... The dynamic of the under-23 race is something new to me, and I’m really excited to see what it’s all about."