Imogen Cotter may have seen her 2022 season wiped out in a career-threatening crash back in January, but there is some good news today as her team has been confirmed as a World Tour squad for next year. It also changes its name from Plantur Pura to Fenix-Deceuninck.
The name change underlines its connection to the Fenix-Deceuninck men's team, with the male and female squads part of the same organisation. Cotter has not yet been confirmed as riding for the team next year. However, it is expected she will stay with the Belgian outfit in 2023, when she hopes to make a return to full strength in the peloton.
The team had already announced late last week that its name would change from Plantur Pura to Fenix-Deceuninck for next season and beyond. It also released photos of its new team kit, above, for the season ahead.
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And today, Monday, the UCI has confirmed the squad will go to World Tour level next year. All that remains is for Fenix-Deceuninck to confirm Irish rider Cotter among it's ranks for 2023, and that confirmation is expected to come soon.
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Cotter tentatively returned to racing in late August, some seven months after her crash when she was hit head-on by a driver in Girona while she was out training. The Co Clare rider should have started the 2022 season with her new team, Plantur Pura, in her Irish road race champion's kit. Instead she was forced onto the sidelines due to her injuries, with an initial period of recovery followed by rehabilitation.
Her time away from racing meant she only had the opportunity to ride a very small number of events, right at the back end of the season, this year. However, she pinned numbers on 10 times in UCI races in September and finished eight of those events, including the three-stage Tour de Romandie.
That meant she was at least able to go into the off-season in the knowledge she had already successfully returned to the peloton rather than waiting to come back to professional racing early next year.
Cotter had just moved to Girona in January when she was hit head-on by a driver in a van. The driver was overtaking another cyclist at the time. The Irish rider was very badly injured and had plates inserted into her radius and ulna bones, the outer and inner bones on the forearm. Her patella was also broken in the crash and she had metal screws inserted into the patella to keep sections of it together.
She also had about 40 metal staples inserted into her knee to help the wound heal. She added scans showed there was “no cartilage left in my right knee”. Since then she has faced a very long recovery and while the healing process set in quickly, she had to undergo a significant rehab regime, and several surgeries, for her knee and wrist.
