Multi-discipline sprinter Maggie Coles-Lyster began 2022 the place she left off from her inaugural season on a ladies’s Continental highway group, DNA Professional Biking Workforce, by scooping podium spots and victories. Within the closing days of the group’s camp in March, the 23-year-old Canadian, dubbed ‘Magnum’, popped one other further giant bottle of glowing wine with a win on stage 3 of the Tucson Bicycle Basic, after which she took the factors lead within the American Criterium Cup with a second-place end at Sunny King Criterium final week.
A yr in the past she launched into her first full season in highway biking and completed second within the total particular person standings for the USA Biking Professional Street Tour and USA Crits sequence and took high prizes on the Armed Forces Biking Basic and Winston-Salem Biking Basic.
After accumulating 10 podiums in criteriums throughout the US, she skipped the low season and hit the monitor in Europe as one 72 elite racers within the inaugural UCI Observe Champions League in November and December. Her love for the monitor started when she was in elementary college in western Canada. She earned a junior monitor world title within the factors race in 2017, and sees the monitor as her path to the Olympic Video games.
“Since I began racing at 8 years outdated I’ve dreamed of being an Olympic gold medalist so I might be gunning exhausting for Paris 2024 within the Omnium, Madison and Workforce Pursuit,” Coles-Lyster instructed Cyclingnews from Scotland, the place she arrived final week to participate within the Glasgow UCI Observe Nations Cup, April 21-24.
“That would be the solely Nations Cup I’ll do that yr, with Commonwealth Video games and Observe World Championships being my different purpose races on the monitor. At Glasgow, I might be racing the Omnium and Elimination, each of that are occasions that I’ve put quite a lot of work into over the previous 4 years. We [Canada] have a really new and younger group pursuit group and completed fourth at Worlds final yr, so we’ll have a few key occasions that we’ll work on gearing up for.”
Final yr on the Champions League sequence, Coles-Lyster completed three factors off the rostrum within the Ladies’s Endurance division after 4 rounds of competitors throughout Spain, Lithuania and Nice Britain. She might be one of many athletes to make an look later this summer time within the documentary sequence in regards to the league, Again on Observe, launched April 4 by way of GCN+ and Eurosport.
In between the monitor occasions, Coles-Lyster will swap from the red-maple-leaf nationwide equipment to the brilliant pink colors of DNA Professional Biking, for her quest to steer the group on the American Criterium Cup sequence and a return to stage racing. Her group is competing at the moment at Redlands Bicycle Basic in California, a USA Biking Professional Street Tour five-day race that returned after a two-year hiatus because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Our group is targeted on the sequence, however we even have plans for the basic North American stage races which have returned (Redlands, Gila, Joe Martin). I imagine we might be actually robust in stage races, and gravel, however I will be specializing in profitable crits and a supporting position, chasing dash factors in stage races,” Coles-Lyster mentioned.
Simply earlier than her nineteenth birthday in February 2018, Coles-Lyster was hospitalised because of a tough crash within the remaining scratch race of the omnium on the Six Day Copenhagen monitor occasion. She suffered a number of fractures to her face and ribs, a punctured lung and a concussion. She was again on a bicycle inside a few weeks, but it surely took months to recuperate utterly from post-concussion signs.
She mentioned she’s wanting ahead to “calling myself a stage racer once more”. She continues to be a U23 rider too, so has huge plans to brush that class with teammates Kaitlyn Rauwerda of Canada and Kira Payer of the US.
“After some nasty crashes and concussions in 2018, I misplaced quite a lot of confidence in highway racing once I misplaced health whereas recovering. To go from that to placing in quite a lot of exhausting work over the pandemic, to high 10 in GC at Joe Martin Stage Race final yr and calling myself a stage racer once more is big for me.”
Her dedication to the UCI 2.2 Joe Martin Stage Race, Might 19-22, will maintain her away from the Rochester Twilight Criterium on Might 21, the second cease of the brand new American Criterium Cup. Nonetheless, the eight races on the sequence calendar are in her bulls eye for a share of the $100,000 prize purse, shared equally between elite males and elite ladies on the finish of the season.
“Having a sequence with factors is cool, having a sequence with cash is epic! It provides one other motivator for groups to point out as much as all of the occasions and fill out the fields and race exhausting – all of which makes criterium racing nice for the riders, the followers, and the communities we race in,” she mentioned. “Crits are such a enjoyable self-discipline for riders and followers – it is one of many causes I really like racing within the US.
With an enormous effort within the remaining stretch of the Sunny King Criterium, Coles-Lyster chased the again wheel of Skylar Schneider (L39ION of Los Angeles), however ran out of pavement for the win. The trouble over the one-hour race gave her the dash factors lead, and had her tied with for the general lead with Skylar Schneider. She wasn’t frightened about lacking one of many races.
“What motivates me to placed on DNA equipment every day is to get stronger and win extra races as a result of I really like profitable. I really like profitable for my teammates who put religion in me. Nonetheless, extra importantly, to win for a group that has supported and given alternatives to and devoted all their time and efforts to feminine cyclists for the previous 10 years. I placed on the equipment every day as a result of it is in my DNA.”
