Between comeback and career end: These female cyclists shaped the 2025 season
Andreas Kublik
· 28.12.2025
Counsellor: Clara Koppenburg
Clara Koppenburg used to want to be the best and win races. Now the 30-year-old cyclist wants to be healthy and happy above all else. She has battled REDs - a type of eating disorder. She deserves credit for putting the topic on the agenda and using intimate inside views to make its implications in elite sport comprehensible and striking for everyone - first in a post on Instagram, then in a detailed and very personal interview in TOUR. Her statements were a kind of talking therapy for herself and perhaps also for other underweight female cyclists.
Successful gene test: Franziska Koch
The genes are good - mum Petra once took part in the Tour de France. Decades later, daughter Franziska Koch is one of the faces of German cycling. She defended her German championship title on a difficult course in the Palatinate Forest and emphasised her international class by finishing fifth in the European Championships.
Rising star: Maeva Squiban
French women's cycling gets a tailwind. Pauline Ferrand-Prévot won the tourThe FDJ-Suez team is number one in the world rankings. And Maeva Squiban (pictured) is the face of the future. The young Breton won two Tour stages with great effort and saved the day for her team UAE-ADQ after captain Elisa Longo Borghini retired early from the race.
Attack!: Anna van der Breggen
Since training as a nurse, Anna van der Breggen has mainly worked in a seated position. Very successful in the racing saddle as a two-time world champion and Olympic champion, then three years as sporting director in the car seat of the SD Worx team racing car. Since the beginning of the year, the Dutchwoman has been back in the saddle regularly. Her Comeback can be considered successful: Although the really big triumphs were missing after the comeback, the 35-year-old Dutchwoman celebrated a stage win at the Vuelta and drove offensive races from the front.
Farewell to the professional cycling mum: Elizabeth Deignan
She is one of the faces of modern women's cycling: Elizabeth Deignan. The British rider was world champion in 2014 and established the new role model in cycling. As a mother of two, she also competed in cycling races at the highest level. After the birth of her first child, she won Paris-Roubaix 2021 with an impressive solo ride. While she raced internationally, husband Philip looked after the children at home - he was also a professional cyclist until 2018. Now the role of cycling working mum is over. At 36, Deignan is pregnant for the third time and ended her active career in the summer. No comeback is planned after the birth.
Beacon of hope: Antonia Niedermaier
The colour white stands for the future in cycling. Antonia Niedermaier from Bad Aibling wants to be the hope of the future in the difficult stage races. In the current generation, she is regarded as a promising candidate for a top place in the Tour de France Femmes. She is still waiting for her debut in France. Last season, the 22-year-old was the captain of Team Canyon-SRAM at the Giro. Fifth place and winning the white jersey are a promise of a future as a world-class tour specialist.
Andreas Kublik
Editor
