When Yanina Kuskova rolled across the line on top of Alpe d'Huez in this year's Tour de France Femmes, she did so alone. At least in terms of her Tashkent City Women's team, for whom Kuskova was the sole rider left in the race.
Her team-mates had all abandoned – four of them after the first stage – leading to questions as to why and how the team came to be riding.
Now though, the team is reportedly gone for good.
The team was set up three years ago by the Uzbekistan Cycling Federation with the aim of qualifying riders for the Paris Olympic Games. Now, having done that and with the Games – and that ignominious week at the TDFF in the past – the team has disbanded.
According to GlobalPeloton, the team was disbanding for several reasons, "including the completion of the Olympic goal and lack of elite cycling infrastructure in the country".
Kuskova, the team talisman, wrote on Instagram yesterday, saying she had not raced since the Tour de France Femmes. She had continued to train, she said, with the intention of going to Zurich for the Worlds road race.
However, the airline tickets booked by the federation would have seen her arrive with just 24 hours to spare, which she said would have left her tired.
"I said I won't go in that case, but they don't care," she wrote. "I'm so sorry that in Uzbekistan they don't understand the value of cycling and athletes. It's a shame, our team existed for three years and it was a great time and now it's over."
A shrewd targeting of low-hanging UCI points by the team had seen it qualify to ride all WorldTour races in 2024, as well as two riders for the Olympics.
It had been the Paris Games, rather than the Tour de France Femmes and other WorldTour races, that had been the main aim, coach Gleb Groysman told CyclingNews earlier this year.
"We don't have enough riders to race all the World Tour races. We have maybe only two or three ready for a Grand Tour. We don't have enough bikes, wheels and there is simply no professional staff ," he said.
At Paris, Uzbekistan qualified Kuskova and her decorated veteran team-mate Olga Zabelinskaya – a medallist in the 2012 and 2016 Games – for the road events. There was no medal this time, with both finishing mid-pack in the road race and Zabelinskaya 23rd in the time trial.
Now that the Games are over, it would appear that so is any reason for the team to exist.
Groysman said goodbye to the team a week ago, and now the revelation that the team will be no more.
Team rider Nafosat Kozieva, who pulled out of the TDFF after three stages, wrote on Instagram after Groysman's departure: "We have been through so much in three years." She called 2024 "unrealistically difficult, responsible, stressful" but said that when Groysman left he insisted, "This is not the end yet".
