THE Board of Trustees for the 2024 Charles Arthur Rhodes Award have elected Catrin (Cat) Ferguson as the recipient from the world of cycling.

The award is presented annually, and previous recipients include high profile World and Olympic champions, such as Beryl Burton and the late Brian Robinson and more recently Lizzie Armitstead, Ed Clancy, Ben Swift and Tom Pidcock, in addition to administrators like Bradford’s Mandy Parker and the White Rose Youth League, who make the sport and pastime so popular in Yorkshire.

The Memorial was instigated in 1961 as a tribute to the memory of Charles Arthur Rhodes (1895-1961), doyen of the Yorkshire Road Club, co-founder in 1932 of the Yorkshire Cycling Federation and a nationally recognised timekeeper and administrator. The award is regarded as the greatest distinction that Yorkshire cycling can bestow.

The Court of Trustees have determined that Catrin ("Cat") Ferguson, a junior woman racing cyclist from Skipton, shall be the recipient of the 2024 Award, in recognition of her having brought exceptional honour to Yorkshire, the county of her birth and residence.

By winning four junior world championships across various disciplines in the year she has raised the profile of junior women riders in the UK and become an inspiration to her contemporaries.

Ferguson started cycling by riding mountain bikes on local trails with her father and was soon drawn into racing, where she progressed and enjoyed increasing successes. She landed her first national honour in 2021 when she became U16 National Female Road Circuit Champion. Shortly after, demonstrating an all-round cycle racing ability, she took to the velodrome and became U16 Madison Champion. 2022 saw her win the U16 Cyclo-Cross Championship, a repeat win of the madison title, then a win in the U16 National Road Race at Scarborough.

Moving on to 2023 she competed internationally and won silver medals in both the World and European Junior Cyclo-Cross Championships, a silver in the World Junior Road Race Championship in Glasgow, and other successes on the world stage, including winning the junior edition of the Tour of Flanders for Women.

2024 proved to be exceptional in Ferguson's racing career as she continued her ascendancy. Early in the year she took silver medals in the World Junior Cyclo-Cross Championship, before completing her schooling with A-levels. Back to serious racing by summer, she continued her dominance by taking wins in the World Junior Track Championships Omnium and Team Pursuit in China. A month later came the highlight of her year with back-to-back wins, in the World Junior Championships Road Race and Time Trial in Switzerland, both very convincingly and having started as favourite. Four rainbow jerseys in a single season is incredible, even by Yorkshire's high standards.

By now Ferguson had been talent spotted and in 2024 rode some races as a stagiaire for the Spanish Movistar team, with the intention of joining them as a full time professional in 2025 and delivered her first win for them in only her second outing in the professional women's peloton. In 2024 her rising profile has continued with the successes already noted and she has been highlighted as one of the future super-stars of women's professional racing.

Further background information on the Award (selection criteria, previous Award winners and a profile of Charles Arthur Rhodes) can be found at www.carhodesaward.org.uk.