Imogen Cotter, whose career took a major set-back when hit by a driver while out training last year, is to get her time in the pro peloton back on track with the Fenix-Deceuninck Development Team. The new development team has been created to run alongside the World Tour line-up.
The team was known as Plantur Pura last season and was a UCI Continental team. However, it has now changed its sponsors, and name, and stepped up to World Tour level. There are 19 riders in the World Tour team and a further nine riders on the development team, which is a Continental level squad.
While Cotter is riding for the Continental team in the year ahead, the riders on that team will be permitted to step up to the World Tour line-up for some races, just as Archie Ryan did last year within the Jumbo Visma wider team organisation.
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Ciclismo Mundial, which owns the Fenix-Deceuninck teams, said it had created a Continenteal feeder squad for its men's World Tour team and, in the interests of equality, it was now doing the same for its women's team.
“We see this as a logical step in our growth. The women’s development team completes the structure," Ciclismo Mundial said in a statement. "Where we want to offer the same chances to women as to men, we also see this as a necessary step to be future-proof, both towards riders and partners. And future is a synonym for development.
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"Both our women’s and men’s development team will have the Continental status. It allows us to mix with the WT-teams in order to adjust the rhythm of development during the season in a way that it becomes tailor-made."
Former national road race champion Cotter (29) was hit head-on by a driver overtaking a cyclist on the opposite side of the road while she was out training having just relocated to Girona last January.
She had plates inserted on 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.
The Co Clare woman 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 has faced a significant rehab regime for her knee and wrist.
Late last season she returned to the peloton for a number of races, including the Tour de Romandie Féminin in Switzerland last October, which was Cotter's first World Tour race.
