Allik seeks a coach after placing 29th at cycling worlds
Wednesday 14th October 2026 on 08:30 in
Estonia
Ann-Christine Allik, who finished 29th in the time trial at the road cycling world championships in Montreal, says she learns something new every day and hopes to find a coach to help her progress, ERR reports.
Allik took up cycling six years ago after discovering endurance sport through cross-country skiing. In the winter of 2019, she joined her father for a ski marathon. When there was no snow the following winter, she looked for another way to build her fitness and began cycling indoors during the Covid pandemic.
She has also practised rhythmic gymnastics, football and extreme sports. Cycling, she said, has proved more varied than it might seem, with different race formats, courses and equipment requiring different skills. Allik considers herself an amateur because she works full-time and manages other parts of her life alongside training.
Allik currently trains without a professional coach. She has relied on her own consistency and knowledge, but believes a coach could help her take the next step. She also pointed to ongoing funding difficulties in women’s cycling, saying that some strong female riders in Estonia do not currently have teams.
At the world championships in Canada, Allik rode a 39.2-kilometre time trial. She learned at short notice that she could compete and had not prepared fully, including not having ridden her time-trial bike for a month and a half. She said the technical course would have required more preparation to achieve a very strong result.
Allik described the time trial as a race against herself, requiring her to judge her abilities and ride for the best result possible. She said riders use sensors on their bikes to collect data on a computer during the race.
She also looked into how many women in the time trial were mothers, using artificial intelligence and publicly available information online. Of about 50 starters, she found no other mothers, though she said she could not be certain because information about some competitors was unavailable.