Patience has many virtues
Nelson cyclist Niamh Fisher-Black has enjoyed a rapid rise but she’s still got a lot to learn after joining the star-studded SD Worx team, reports Phillip Rollo.
Niamh Fisher-Black is going places, fast. But although the SD Worx rider has experienced a rapid rise in professional cycling over the past 18 months, she is also learning to take it slow on the strongest team in the Women’s WorldTour peloton.
The 2020 national road race champion has just completed a busy week at the Ardennes Classics in Belgium and the Netherlands, helping the star-studded SD Worx team claim victories at La Fleche Wallonne and Liege-Bastogne-Liege as well as a second-place finish at the Amstel Gold Race.
‘‘It can’t get much better than that. It’s actually mind-boggling to be a part of a team that can do that,’’ Fisher-Black said. ‘‘Even coming to these races and doing them, I had a small taste of it last year with my last team, but it feels so different because it’s such a different experience.
‘‘I’m racing with the best team in the world and it’s a different way that you race and a different way you’re treated in the peloton. It’s crazy to think only two years ago I wouldn’t have even dreamed of being in these WorldTour races.’’
Fisher-Black was heavily involved in each of the three Classics, used at the front of the peloton to help claw back the breakaway when SD Worx felt the gap widening, while also managing to get in the break herself, going solo for a period at Liege-Bastogne-Liege before team-mate Demi Vollering triumphed at the finish line.
Remarkably, La Fleche Wallonne, which finished on the notoriously steep Mur de Huy climb, was won by SD Worx’s superstar rider Anna van der Breggen for the seventh year in a row.
‘‘We have our real favourites and often, because we are such a strong team, we can go into a race with up to three real favourites,’’ FisherBlack said. ‘‘But the good thing about this team is there’s always opportunity. They’ll never see me go up the road and say ‘we don’t want you to win’.
‘‘If I get in a good opportunity then I can go for the win, just like anyone else in the team. My role these last few races has just been to cover any breakaways and make sure that we stay in control of the race, and I think we’ve had a good battle with the other good WorldTour teams.’’
Fisher-Black has enjoyed rubbing shoulders with van der Breggen after making the step up to a Women’s WorldTour team for 2021 following a roller-coaster season with Equipe Paule Ka. She said the current world champion’s best piece of advice was to pace herself with regard to her promising young career.
The Nelson rider, whose younger brother Finn Fisher-Black rides for Jumbo-Visma’s development team, enjoyed a breakout year in her first season as a professional cyclist, winning the New Zealand title and finishing second on the final stage of the prestigious Giro Rosa.
But as her career continues to gather pace, Fisher-Black said her ‘‘idol’’ van der Breggen was often reminding her to be patient when it came to individual success. She is still only 20 years old after all.
‘‘Anna just reminds me every day to take my time because I’ve got a whole career ahead of me,’’ she said.
‘‘This year I’ve realised there’s still so much I still need to learn and first, before I start winning the races, I need to get the little things right – even things like Liege-BastogneLiege was my first real experience going solo off the front of a WorldTour peloton and I had my first doping test.
‘‘It kind of makes me realise I’m still so new to the sport and still a bit of a rookie compared to people like Anna van der Breggen.’’
The NRL’s proposed conference system and expansion plan to add a second team from New Zealand will face several challenges, not least of which is that there are no current bidders to set up a franchise in NZ.
The governing body has flagged the prospect of expanding the competition to as many as 18 teams, with a decision whether to include another Queensland-based franchise to be made in July.
League powerbrokers have indicated that another New Zealandbased franchise could be added shortly afterwards, giving the competition an even number of teams that could possibly be split into conferences.
Wellington and Christchurch would appear to be the most logical locations for another side given the Warriors are already based in Auckland.
However, officials from both those regions were unaware of any consortiums being assembled with a view to seeking an NRL licence.
Robert Picone was one of the parties behind a Wellington-based bid team dubbed the South Pacific Cyclones.
They had floated a plan several years ago to play matches out of Fiji and Wellington, but Picone said that bid had now been aborted.
NZRL chief executive Greg Peters welcomed the prospect of an additional New Zealand franchise as a ‘‘fantastic development’’.
However, he was unaware of any active bidders and cautioned that it would take several years before the nation was ready for expansion.
‘‘There’s a pretty big lead time to set up these things,’’ Peters said. ‘‘In the medium-long term, I think it’s a fantastic development.
‘‘I’d rather the Warriors establish themselves as regular finalists and that was solid and then we look to the future. There needs to be a stepping-stone approach to make sure we have the depth within the game within New Zealand.
‘‘There are examples in New Zealand sport historically [of new teams] where it starts off with a hiss and a roar and then it fades away.’’
The Warriors are open to the prospect of further competition in New Zealand if it is backed by a strong business case, but would be opposed to any incursion into their