Philip Deignan represented Ireland in the men’s road race at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Born in Letterkenny, Co. Donegal, Deignan first got on a bicycle in 1997 during the annual Sligo to Letterkenny charity cycle. He attended St Eunan’s College before honing his craft as an amateur with Vélo-Club La Pomme Marseille in France, winning the final stage and overall classification of the 2004 Ronde de l’Isard. He turned professional with AG2R La Mondiale in 2005 and proved himself a gifted climber.

His finest moment came at the 2009 Vuelta a España with Cervélo TestTeam, where he won stage 18 into Ávila – becoming the first Irishman to win a Grand Tour stage since Stephen Roche at the 1992 Tour de France – and went on to finish 9th overall, the best result by an Irish cyclist at a Grand Tour since Roche’s era. He subsequently spent five seasons at Team Sky from 2014, becoming a valued domestique and key contributor to the team’s major successes. He won the Tour of the Gila in 2013. He rode 11 Grand Tours across his career, his last being the 2017 Giro d’Italia. He married fellow professional cyclist Lizzie Armitstead in 2016 and announced his retirement in November 2018.