Britain’s women are on the up and one club
is making a big contribution to the future
The Liv-Epic
endeavour
Photos: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com, Cor VosOwen Rogers
he sight of Lauren
Dolan slumped over
her handlebars after
the junior women’s Worlds time
trial in Bergen last September
will live long in the memory.
Once pristine white, her right
sock had been turned deep red
with blood, a crash halfway
through the 16.1km test leaving
her leg scarred with deep
lacerations (pictured below).
That she completed the
race at all — let alone placed
27th of the 45 fi nishers — is
testament to the Devon-based
rider’s tenacity and courage, but
is certainly not what she had
hoped to be remembered for.
“I wanted to get a name from
being good, earning it and being
on the top step of the podium,”
she tells us. “I was devastated
that I couldn’t ride the road
race because all year I had
been aiming for that. Not even
getting to the start line was soul
destroying, and having to watch
it from a hospital bed on my
18th birthday wasn’t great.”
Headlines surrounding
Dolan’s remarkable tenacity
overwhelmed the story of
Great Britain’s junior women’s
team performance in Bergen.
Few spoke of Pfeiffer Georgi, then
only 16, who fi nished seventh and
sixth in the time trial and road
race respectively. And no one
mentioned how she and Dolan
were two of four riders on the
team to have spent 2017 racing for
the Liv-Epic club.
Run by Peter Georgi and
Mark Dolan, the club takes its
name from the latter’s coaching
company and the former’s club,
from which Liv-Epic developed
to aid their daughters’ and their
daughters’ friend’s transition from
youth racing to elite level.
“We wanted to create a group
of girls who knew each other from
racing and all of a sudden were
getting dumped into the big wide
world of senior racing with no
under-23 or real junior category,”
explains Mark Dolan. “Though not
in spirit, they’re little girls amongst
elite women, and we wanted to
protect them.
“A key thing is 95 per cent of
them are studying, and if you join
biggish teams there is a pressure
to race and train through exams. It
is just removing all that stress and
allowing them to ride when they
want and race when they want.”Last year was Liv-Epic’s
second season and one through
which they dominated the junior
women’s scene with numerous
wins on road and track. Eight
of their nine riders managed
at least one age group win, but
their success also extended to
a number of E/1/2/3 victories.
Aged just 18, Jess Roberts even
beat serious opposition from the
country’s top domestic and UCI
teams, bagging a round of the
Matrix Fitness Series (pictured).
There has also been
international success
representing the GB junior
team. In March Roberts was
the fi rst of three club riders in
the top 11 at the Piccolo Trofeo
Alfredo Binda, before winning
two stages at the Junior Healthy
Ageing Tour. Though unable
to match Roberts’s 2016 win,
Georgi bagged second place at
EPZ Omloop van Borsele, before
the pair completed their Worlds
preparations with a win each in
the Netherlands.
However, Georgi’s lone break
victory at Ghent-Wevelgem —
arguably the team’s biggest win
— was a team success.
“I wasn’t expecting that at
all,” she says. “After the race it
was quite crazy, standing behind
the podium with Greg van
Avermaet and Peter Sagan was
pretty exciting.”Cycling Weekly | January 11, 2018 | 29