World champion Lizzie Armitstead has been busy training for the 2016 season with her Boels Dolmans teammates in Calpe, Spain, but arrived in Kaatsheuvel, the Netherlands for the team's presentation today. Though her main goal for this year is the Olympic Games in Rio in August, where she will aim to go one better than her silver medal from London, she is sticking to a tried and true formula for training and racing this year.
"I’m trying not to change too much. That’s a mistake I see a lot of athletes making," Armitstead said. "It’s something I was given some advice on once, by Michael Johnson the 400m runner, I met him once at a press conference and he said to me the biggest mistake he sees is athletes doing too much in an Olympic year. The formula I’ve had works, so I’m not going to change too much but I’m generally doing more climbing and after the spring I’ll change more into the mountains. But before the Spring Classics I don’t want to change too much."
Armitstead's method worked to perfection in 2015, with victories in the Ladies Tour of Qatar and the World Championships book-ending her season. Although she was not specifically targeting it, wins in the Trofeo Alfredo Binda, Philly Classic, and GP Plouay de Bretagne made her the last winner of the UCI Women's World Cup, which this season morphs into the Women's WorldTour. Her first goals will look a lot like last year, with an emphasis on the one-day Classics before building toward the latter part of the season.
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"I suppose I’m splitting my season into two - the Spring Classics then focusing totally on Rio. It would be nice to win [Tour of] Flanders because I don’t know if I’ll win so much in the rest of the season focusing so much on my training for Rio. Flanders has always been a dream race. If I don’t win it won't be the end of the world but I’d really like to win it."
Armitstead has always been heavily marked since a breakthrough season in 2011, but now that she wears the rainbow jersey she knows that she will be a target, and the obligations of being world champion will require careful consideration to avoid the so-called curse of the rainbow jersey.
"It's really difficult to manage being a world champion. My winter has been so busy and that’s going to have an effect on performance if you’re not careful. After 2012, it did affect my performance, being a British athlete getting a medal [she was second in the London Olympics], that winter was so busy and my next season was terrible. So I learned from that experience and I kept a good balance this winter, and learned to say no. I understand where it comes from but I don’t believe in the curse."
Part of that balance is remaining self-driven, her motivations and pressure coming from within rather than from anyone else's expectations. "I always ride for myself and to prove to myself that I’m good. I’m not really bothered about the media or expectation – I’m always doing it for me, and I’ve proved to myself that I can be the best in the world, so the pressure is actually off a little bit, I think.
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