Lizzie Deignan: It was time to start somewhere new

Lizzie Deignan has said that her departure from the Boels Dolmans team was amicable and it was time to start afresh after it was announced that she would head up Trek's new women's team in 2019.

Deignan, who joined Boels Dolmans in 2014, decided to cut short her contract with the Dutch squad to become a brand ambassador for the bike manufacturer ahead of her debut as a rider for the 2019 season. The new deal will see her stay at the nascent team for at least two years.

"I think we were both on the same page, that it was a good time for me to start somewhere new. I definitely didn't leave with any ill feeling on any side. It was a very amicable separation," Deignan said following a press conference at the Trek-Segafredo hotel in Aix-les-Bains on the Tour de France's first rest day.

"My contract with Boels Dolmans was due to be up at the end of this year anyway. Trek approached me to say that they were thinking of this new concept with a women's team and I was very interested from the start. Negotiations happened, and here we are."

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Deignan was coy on when exactly she began speaking with Trek about the new project but said that she had already decided to cut ties with Boels Dolmans by that point. The British former world champion is currently on sabbatical while pregnant with her first child, which is due in September.

She announced her pregnancy in March, after initially being named on the start list for a few early-season races. With her contract due for renewal at the end of this season, Deignan said that she believed she would have far fewer options following her pregnancy but that she was pleased to see it wasn’t the case.

"I knew that announcing my pregnancy would potentially limit my options of teams and I was pleasantly surprised that it didn't. I wasn't sure what to expect and I guess my perception of it was that I could potentially be perceived as a risk, but the opposite happened when Trek came," she explained.

— Lizzie Deignan (@lizziedeignan) July 16, 2018

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