Lizzie Deignan looks to get back to winning ways while new British generation is on the rise

Lizzie Deignan, left, and Elynor Backstedt, right, are two of Britain's leading riders

There's a comeback in road cycling this year which could be momentous - a huge achievement in a sport so demanding on the body.

And, no, it's not Mark Cavendish…

Britain's former world champion Lizzie Deignan starts the 2024 season looking to regain the race-winning form which made her one of the best in the world, 18 months after having her second child.

At the age of 35, Deignan is in the final year of her contract with the Lid-Trek team, knowing she needs to come closer to the form she showed after having her first child.

She won several of the sport's biggest races across 2019-2021, including the inaugural one-day Paris-Roubaix Femmes in spectacular fashion in awful conditions.

Deignan said: "2023 was my first season without a victory. I haven't been shy about stating that, this year, I want to reverse that trend. I know I can."

Lidl-Trek have been very supportive of their riders, especially when it comes to family planning.

Last year helped consolidate Deignan's fitness, and saw her play more of a supporting role. But this year should be different.

Her season kicked off during last week's 'opening weekend' in Belgium at Omloop het Nieuwsblad.

But it's at another tricky one-day race - the chalk-dust roads of Strade Bianche in Tuscany, Italy, on Saturday - where she could hit her stride.

"I've put the work in and I am pretty optimistic about being able to win again," Deignan added.

"I am not going to say that it will definitely happen this weekend - it can take time to find your race rhythm."

The tough Strade Bianche Donne is one of a number of one-day spring classics where British riders could excel - others include Paris-Roubaix Femmes and the Tour of Flanders in April

A good year for British riders?

And there's more and more Britons coming to the fore in the Women's World Tour, although the only other British rider to have won a World Tour race since it was launched in 2019 apart from Deignan is Team DSM-Firmenich Post NL's Pfeiffer Georgi, who took victory in the Brugge-De Panne one day race in 2023.

Georgi, 23, is a powerful one-day racer who also captains her team in the peloton and protects other riders when not racing for herself, such as sprinters on flatter stages.

Many of the best British female talents in the peloton focus on one-day events and time trials; climbing still being a relatively new and uncommon type of racing on the women's side of the sport.

"I love the one-day classics," says Wales' Elynor Backstedt, another one-day racer and time trialist with potential to win big.

"I love flat, hard, windy races. I don't go so well in mountains. Cold, wet races are more my kind of thing."

Backstedt, 22, along with her sister and "favourite rider in the peloton" Zoe, the 19-year-old multiple world junior champion, come from strong cycling stock - their mum and dad both raced, with dad Magnus winning the men's Paris-Roubaix in 2004.

The elder Backstedt sister, who rides for Deignan's Lidl-Trek team, added: "I've had a few rough years in terms of injuries. [Trying to compete for wins] is something I'm looking to do more of. I feel like I am good at reading the race well enough to be in that position."

And the list of potential British achievers goes even deeper, including 22-year-old Anna Shackley, who came second at the inaugural Tour de l'Avenir Femmes in 2023 and who rides for the dominant SD Worx team, and Anna Henderson, fourth in last year's world time trial championship, at Visma-Lease A Bike.

The major stage races on the 28-race 2024 calendar include the week-long Tour de France Femmes, Giro d'Italia Women and Vuelta Espana Femenina - expect big performances from Demi Vollering, above

Growing British excitement, but beware the low countries

The big-money Hess team join five other British teams in the continental second tier and have already signed some young Britons, such as Holly Ramsey and Grace Lister, for this season as they look to move to the World Tour from as early as next year - more evidence of the growth of a sport, seemingly by the week.

Cycling's world governing body the UCI says women's salaries and team budgets are increasing year-on-year, while the number of applications for teams exceeded the available number of licences for the first time last year.

"It's a really exciting time," adds Backstedt, in what is now her fifth season.

"Races have got longer with their intensity and there's more of them. And teams are getting bigger to accommodate that.

"Coming from a family where my mum [former British champion Megan] had to have a job whilst being a cyclist, it's great."

But for these young British riders to become winners in the peloton, they have to do something about the domination of the low countries.

That domination is thanks mainly to Belgium's Lotte Kopecky, and the Netherlands' Marianne Vos and Demi Vollering, who was last year's winner of the Tour de France Femmes.

Vollering had a phenomenal season in 2023, even beating the now-retired superb climber Annemiek van Vleuten on the Col du Tourmalet.

Expect those three names to be at the forefront of all big races in 2024, including at the Paris Olympics and World Road Championships in Zurich, which are live on the BBC in September.

The best of British, however, will not be far behind.