The ultimate time a girls’s peloton raced at Milan-San Remo was once in 2005, a 12 months ahead of 18-year-old tremendous ability Cat Ferguson (Movistar) was once born.
Alternatively, with the race’s revival now not up to 24 hours away, the Brit is primed to start out as one of the most darkish horses, recent off the again of a podium on WorldTour debut.
“I’m feeling privileged to join the sport at this time and have all these opportunities available to me, I know that a year ago, this race obviously wasn’t a thing, so I think it’s really special. Hopefully, I’ll remember this race and moment for the rest of my career.”
She’s in reality affected by a minor little bit of sickness, having woken up no longer feeling 100% on Friday, on the other hand, is hopeful that can have cleared up forward of the beginning in Genoa.
“I have woken up today like a little bit ill, so I’ll see how that goes,” she mentioned.
“I’m kind of struggling to breathe, so I hope just a good night’s of sleep and hopefully it’s gone a bit.”
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Double junior Global Champion Ferguson unfolded her WWT highway occupation with Movistar at Trofeo Alfredo Binda ultimate Sunday, some 18 months after she was once introduced a signing for the long run, and he or she did not disappoint.
Most effective former Global Champion Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek) and Blanka Vas (SD Worx-Protime) controlled to overcome her within the dash when racing got here again in combination after 4 brutal hours of motion. It is a end result that vindicated Movistar’s determination to signal her but additionally one who stunned the Brit, who published that it wasn’t all rosy ahead of she took 3rd.
“The race itself was really not one of my best. The whole time before the final sprint, I was really struggling with fuelling, it being four hours, and positioning,” Ferguson mentioned.
“It was. really not one that I’m super proud of, but the final sprint went a lot better than I ever could have thought, during and before the race. It definitely is a big shock, but I’m not putting any pressure on myself in the future to get results like that for now, I think it was almost lucky in the sense.”
The roads round Cittiglio in northern Italy had been ones that Ferguson is aware of neatly, having received the junior model of the race in 2023, on the other hand, that step as much as WorldTour was once indubitably felt by way of {the teenager}.
“The step up is really challenging because you take a race like Binda and it’s not only just double the distance, but obviously, the pace is a lot harder and so much more happens in an elite race,” mentioned Ferguson.
“Junior races are much calmer, you can be at the front and it’s nowhere near as challenging mentally as the four hours of the elite race.”
Stepping up for Milan-San Remo Ladies
Ferguson sprints to 3rd at Trofeo Alfredo Binda (Symbol credit score: Getty Pictures)
Ferguson additionally published that she wasn’t even meant to be racing on the revived one-day Vintage, with the call-up most effective coming a fortnight in the past. She’s additionally no longer certain of her actual function but however has a good suggestion of the way she could also be utilised in a squad that includes Liane Lippert.
“I’m not actually sure [why she was picked late], my shape is good right now, other than my illness right now, so maybe it was that. But there wasn’t a specific sort of reason why.
“I do not absolutely know the workforce plan but, however my prediction can be that I’m going to be given most certainly a job following strikes and positioning. No matter they inform me to do, whether or not that be to dash, I will be able to do this. Whether or not this is for me to steer it out and provides my all ahead of the Poggio, I will be able to additionally do this. My primary motivation is to lead them to glad and to fulfil that function for them.”
Having done a 60km recon with Movistar on Thursday, Ferguson also weighed in on how she feels the women’s race may play out, with several possibilities looking plausible on the 156km route.
“After all, we need to take the lads’s race as a information, however we’re other to the lads’s. I feel for us, the climbs virtually change into extra [important] climbs than within the males’s. I feel they’ll do extra harm than they are able to do within the males’s race,” mentioned the younger Brit.
“I feel the crowd on the end is certainly going to be so much smaller than what now we have noticed in earlier males’s races like ultimate 12 months. The descents truly stunned me, they’re much more difficult than I assumed, and that’s the reason with regards to highway floor, the corners and the whole lot.
“I know they say it’s the hardest race to win but easiest to finish, and 100% I agree with that after doing it. The climbs almost don’t seem that difficult, but as a whole, it feels an extremely challenging race to sort of predict the outcome.”
Having inspired within the dash in Binda and beat the likes of Marianne Vos (Visma-Rent a Motorcycle) and Letizia Paternoster (Liv Jayco AlUla) to the road, Ferguson can not assist however lift some self belief into Saturday’s race. Alternatively, she is not getting forward of herself having most effective simply joined the WorldTour.
“It’s difficult to get a result like Binda and not sort of have a little bit of hope going forward,” she mentioned.
“For me, it sounds strange, but this year really is not about results. It’s about committing to the team and showing them that I’m a rider that is really an asset.”
Nevertheless, if racing does not utterly explode after the Cipressa and Poggio within the girls’s race, Ferguson isn’t a rider to underestimate, already appearing her capacity to dash after a brutal day within the saddle at Trofeo Alfredo Binda.
“Sprint finishes may come quite naturally to me. Instinctively, I just end up finding my way to the front and end up positioning myself well, naturally,” Ferguson mentioned. The entire remainder of the race, I used to be all the time suffering and having to inform myself, that I had to transfer ahead.
“But maybe it’s because I’ve had experience sprint finishing before, whereas I’ve never had experience in a WorldTour bunch before. It’s strange to say it becomes easier for me, but it almost does, in a sense.”
In spite of realizing her skills, it’s going to nonetheless a marvel to move so neatly in her first-ever Ladies’s WorldTour race.
“It was never the outcome I expected, to come third, like I watched the sprint back and I come into the like final corner quite fast. I think I had a lot more momentum than the other girls and I actually went pretty early in the sprint, earlier than I should have gone probably,” she mentioned.
“But I managed to hold off the others and come third, which is something in the race that if you told me I would have finished third after how I was feeling and how everything was going, I would absolutely never have believed that.”
