The school Easter holidays are a time for students to relax, catch up on classwork, and prepare for their upcoming exams. Unless you’re Carys Lloyd, who also found time to make history at one of the biggest bike races in the world.
At 18 years and 102 days old, the Movistar rider is the youngest rider to ever compete in Paris-Roubaix Femmes – 21 days younger than the previous holder of the honour.
She is also 76 days younger than Ineos Grenadiers’ AJ August, who holds the men's record in the modern era of the Monument. Riders as young as 17, however, are known to have competed in the 1900 edition.
“It was a hell of a lot harder [than I expected],” Lloyd said afterwards with a smile. The teenager spent the days leading up to the race revising maths equations for her A-Levels. Come the end of the afternoon, she sat cross-legged on the grass of Roubaix Velodrome, her face speckled with dirt, and arm bloodied from a crash.
“I saw [my family] on one of the cobble sectors, and genuinely, my dad made a grimace face because he could see how much pain I was in," she said.
“I thought it was going to be nice and chill for the first 60km, then maybe when we got to the cobbles we’d absolutely go for it. Crashing in the first half and then having to sprint back on definitely made it a lot harder.”
It was, by all accounts, a typical Roubaix welcome for the 18-year-old. Her shattered Garmin GPS computer, destroyed in a crash, told of the brutality of the cobbles she faced. Lloyd ultimately finished outside of the time limit, almost 20 minutes behind the day's winner, Visma-Lease a Bike’s Pauline Ferrand-Prévot.
Fifteen years the junior of the Frenchwoman, Lloyd’s career as a cyclist is disctinct, existing alongside her studies. “I have to miss quite a bit of school,” she said, but thanks to the school holidays, “I’m not actually missing any school for this.
“When I go away, I have to tell my teachers, like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m just off to the UAE.’ And they go, ‘What are you doing there?’ I’m like, ‘I’m racing.’ I think some of them can’t wrap their heads around it.
“I have my first exam in about a month and a half. I’m getting a little bit nervous now, but just fitting in [school] work whenever I can, not overdoing it, but still doing enough. I feel prepared, hopefully,” she continued. “Being able to do stuff like this is amazing.”
Lloyd was in familiar company among the other teenagers on Saturday's Paris-Roubaix Femmes start list. Of the four youngest riders at this year’s race, three came from the same cohort of British Cycling – Lloyd, Cat Ferguson (Movistar) and Imogen Wolff (Visma-Lease a Bike).
“We’ve grown up together,” said Ferguson of the trio ahead of the race. “We’ve raced since we were 12 years old, and always fighting against each other. Now we’re here in the biggest one-day race in the world.”
A crash sadly meant Ferguson’s day was cut short, while Wolff placed a valiant 22nd.
“I feel like I’ve definitely got unfinished business here,” said Wolff afterwards, cheered from the stands by family friends.
Lloyd echoed the same determined sentiment. “When I came in here [into the velodrome], I was like, ‘Ok, I know what I’m doing. It’s a track race,” the three-time junior track world champion, said.
Will she be back next year? “Definitely," the teenager smiled. "If I have the choice."
