‘I don’t want to settle for another second place at the Worlds’: Niamh Fisher-Black Q&A

Cyclist
‘I don’t want to settle for another second place at the Worlds’: Niamh Fisher-Black Q&A

When you joined Lidl-Trek ahead of 2025, you talked about needing to learn and grow. How have you developed since moving to the team?

My biggest thing was learning to have confidence in myself, as I didn’t really have that from the beginning. Also that’s helped a little bit in the team, because in having confidence you begin to race a little bit differently. By the end of 2025 I was taking chances and playing a bit more; I was not afraid to try.

Becoming a leader takes time and growing up a little bit. When the team says, ‘We ride for Niamh today,’ I think a lot of people take for granted how easy learning to do that may be – it’s not something that comes easily to me. It’s been a learning curve, but I feel like a different rider to the one I was when I joined, which is really cool and promising.

Is confidence and leadership something you learn by doing or can you do tangible things – read books, listen to podcasts – to improve it?

Mostly I learn from the people around me. I think Elisa Balsamo is a really good role model of a really strong leader; Lizzie Deignan was too. I could name countless riders. Maybe they don’t realise I’m always watching what they’re doing.

Coming from SD Worx with stars such as Demi Vollering, Anna van der Breggen and Chantal van den Broek-Blaak, was it intimidating or were you able to learn a lot from it?

I would never say it was intimidating. Personally, I always considered myself lesser than them, maybe because I am a younger, still-developing rider, and that makes it strange for me now, going into races and putting myself on a par with Demi Vollering. But I have to see it like that if I want to compete against her and them. It’s a change of mindset.

A lot of pro cyclists take suffering for granted as they’re so used to it. Can you put into words what it really feels like when racing for the rainbow jersey or the Tour de France Femmes podium?

It’s different every time. The way I felt in the Tour de France fight was very different to the World Championships. I think a lot of what we do is not letting emotion in too much. It’s a difficult balance because sometimes I would look back on a race and think, ‘If I just pushed a bit harder or wanted it a bit more.’ But it’s not like that.

So much about performance these days is so calculated, and obviously you wouldn’t be able to do it if you didn’t really want something. It’s what drives us in the end, that competitiveness. For sure, in a race like the Tour de France my body does crazy things in the last few days; you wouldn’t expect it’s possible to do your best performances after seven days straight of racing when you couldn’t do it fresh in training.