Maggie Coles-Lyster's sprint to glory at the Tour Down Under Women's One Day Race on Wednesday may have stood out as her first win since 2022, but the triumph also marked the culmination of a long comeback from iliac artery surgery.
The Canadian racer struggled last spring with strange sensations in her leg as well as a deep ache and unusual cramps. She raced on until early July before undergoing surgery to fix the issue, while a return to racing eventually came with the season-ending races in China.
Now, six months on from the operation, Coles-Lyster can celebrate the biggest day of her racing career.
"I'm someone who never really counts myself out or really doubts myself. It's just that it's my first pro win and it's been kind of a rollercoaster of a week," Coles-Lyster said in the post-race press conference.
"I wasn't sure if this would be the outcome, but I knew that I had a lot of belief behind me, and this was just a matter of staying calm. My first win would come, but this is really like my comeback weekend after a big operation last year, so there were a lot of question marks going into it."
Coles-Lyster, who is racing with Human Powered Health in her fourth year at Women's WorldTour level after a spell with Roland, said that she retained her self-belief during her comeback from the condition and surgery.
She said that she had come through "a lot of setbacks" during the process, noting that getting through it all was about staying patient.
"A comeback like this gives a lot of hope and kind of restores that belief in you," she said.
"With something like the iliac artery, it's – you know what you're capable of, and it's just a matter of finding that after the surgery and trusting that it can come back and that you can hopefully supersede what you were before.
"I've said this a lot, like a game of patience, and I really do think that's true. It's a building process, and I think this is a huge step for me in my career."
The win also comes after Human Powered Health finished the Tour Down Under with only three riders – Coles-Lyster being a DNF on stage 2.
Coles-Lyster's win at the 94.2km race in Tanunda came at the end of a day full of attacks. She prevailed with a sprint from a reduced peloton, but said later that she had expected the race to be a little calmer than it was.
Her criterium racing experience – the race was made up of 12 laps of a street circuit – carried her through the chaos, however.
"I think everyone was expecting the peloton to be a little tired after the Tour Down Under on the weekend and maybe a little bit more chill," she said. "Even us in the radio at one point were like, 'Oh, I think it's calming down for a second.' And it absolutely did not.
"With the crosswinds, I think it made everyone a bit nervous, and everyone wanted to push it to try to create a split in the group. There was attack after attack.
"So, it was very much like a criterium, and that's what I grew up racing. That's kind of my happy place – when it's just chaos, and there's moves happening, and you just have to keep reacting. That was definitely what it was. It was a very fast race, too."
The race wasn't without difficulties for Coles-Lyster, who found herself one among several riders caught up in crashes late on. She stayed calm despite going down and managed to get back to the front in time to contest the win.
At the line, she outpaced Women's Tour Down Under champion Noemi Rüegg and SD Worx-Protime racer Marta Lach to claim the biggest win of her career.
"Well, I crashed the lap before. So I was caught up in one of those in the last couple. It was kind of predictable – it was nervous, it was fast, there was wind, and I figured there would be crashes, so I heard them all behind me," she said.
"I knew it was a matter of just staying in good position, staying up with that front group, and likely it would hopefully be safer. I mean, the initial impact, I feel like it's with most crashes, you're like, 'Oh, what did I do? Are my ribs OK? Is everything OK?' So I had a second of that, and then everything was OK.
"Even after that, it's easy to get back on your bike and just try to go full to get back to the group. So that was a game of just taking it easy, using the cars, and trying to just stay calm. My teammate was waiting at the back of the peloton to help me back into it.
"So, yeah, I feel like I executed that perfectly, but there was a second of, 'Oh no, this might be it.' But then I think I got a bit of an adrenaline rush from that. So, you know, maybe I need to crash more often! Just kidding."
