“I’ve often joked with other athletes that there needs to be a WorldTour nursery”, says endurance track cyclist, Elinor Barker, ahead of her third Olympic Games. “Soon, it’ll be quite a good business,” she qualifies - suggesting the idea isn’t entirely comical.
Barker, who races on the road for WorldTour team Uno-X Mobility, makes a good point. The peloton contains a number of new parents. Ellen Van Dijk, who raced the women’s Olympic time trial on Saturday, welcomed her son in October 2023, SD-Worx’s Chantal van den Broek-Blaak’s daughter was born in May 2023; Barker's son Nico is now in his second year. On the men’s side, Victor Campenaerts’ June-born baby was along for the ride at some stages of the 2024 Tour de France.
