Elisa Longo Borghini is an Italian road cyclist, who currently rides for UCI Women’s WorldTeam Lidl-Trek. She is an all rounder as she can climb, is proficient in the time trial, and has a penchant for getting in a breakaway.

 

Elisa lives and trains in Italy where she grew up and is very family-orientated. She loves nothing more than training around the lakes and mountains near to where she lives.  Her mother was a cross country skier and her brother, Paolo, also competed professionally as a cyclist between 2004 and 2014, so sports performance is in her blood. Her best advice, ‘Remember who you are and where you come from’ is from her parents, and ensures that she is one of the most grounded riders in the peloton.

 

Elisa praises her brother as her biggest inspiration as a bike rider. He has a spirit of sacrifice in sport and a capability to take things always with a smile which she admires and channels into her own training and racing.

 

Elisa boasts an impressive palmarès with multiple podiums over her career.  She made her professional debut in 2011 at the age of 18 and has been getting better and better. Elisa rode for Wiggle-Honda in the 2015 until the end of the 2018 season when she confirmed she was going to be joining the newly formed Trek-Segafredo team (now Lidl-Trek) where she has been ever since as a key member of the team.

 

Some of her most significant accolades include being the first Italian to win the Tour of Flanders (2015), and winning two bronze medals at the Olympics (Rio and Tokyo). She followed these up by having a very successful 2021 season where she defended her National road and time trial titles, won WorldTour races Trofeo Alfredo Binda and GP Plouay, and finished on the podium in Strade Bianche, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, La Flèche Wallonne and the inaugural Paris Roubaix Femmes where she stood alongside her teammate and good friend Lizzie Deignan who took the victory.

 

In 2022 Elisa went better, winning the Paris Roubaix Femmes in style and taking home the iconic cobblestone, ensuring the team retained a clean sweep! Elisa also won the Women’s Tour in an exciting sprint finish in Oxford, before riding really strongly at the inaugural Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift and finishing in 6th in the General Classification. Elisa finished the season on the top step of both Tre Valli Varesine and Giro Dell’Emilia.

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2023 started with a victory at the UAE Tour, and podiums at Tour of Flanders, Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Tour de Suisse, along with supporting some great team performances. Elisa dominated the Italian National Championships winning both the Road Race and the ITT and is wearing the Tricolore with pride. 

 

Sadly the remainder of the year played host to a few injuries and illness, but Elisa came back fighting in 2024 with a career highlight, winning Flanders nine years after she had previously taken the victory.