Imogen Wolff is one of several teenagers who joined the Women's WorldTour in 2025. She quickly showed that Visma-Lease a Bike made the right decision, netting her first pro win on stage 3 of the Vuelta a Extremadura and then raced Gent-Wevelgem Women as a leader.
Racing Milan-San Remo, Brugge de Panne and Gent-Wevelgem in an eight-day spell of hectic competition has been a baptism of fire for the 19-year-old Briton but she has already shown enough for Visma to trust her.
She made it over Kemmelberg climb among the top 15 riders in Gent-Wevelgem, before attempting to lead out Martina Fidanza in the sprint. Wolff finished 20th and her sprinter 18th, but that result doesn't quite show the potential for future success.
"It was a roller coaster, quite chaotic at the start, and I got really caught out heading into the echelon section. We managed to get back, and my job was to get over the climbs. I just hung on as best as I could," Wolff told Cyclingnews at the finish.
"I'm pleased to have come over with the front group of 20-15 riders, and then when it came back together, which was great for us because we have Martina.
"In the last kilometre, I was trying really hard to drop her off at Kopecky and Wiebes' train. But we just lost each other in the final. I think we can be proud of the ride but the result sounds a bit shit, so it doesn't really reflect that."
Honest in her assessment of the team's performance, Wolff could nonetheless be satisfied with where her form is at, given the tough adjustment from racing in a junior peloton against all of the world's best.
"The development is pretty cool, to be honest, and quite surprising. It feels like it's taking a bit of time to find my feet with things outside the physical stuff, like positioning, the wind and tactics," said Wolff.
"But I think the fact that maybe my physical side is there is really nice and promising. So I'm happy with that.
"It's everything other than the actual watts, like the fuelling and the length of the races. But particularly for me, the positioning in the bunch because instead of at juniors, where there's maybe 20 girls that can fight for the front there's 120 so you've got to be really, really sharp.
"But I'm really enjoying the whole process of learning and I'm really lucky that the team's given me the time and the space to learn and that there's some pretty cool athletes in my team that I can learn from."
Wolff is of course referring to the likes of Marianne Vos and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, among others. That pair have 26 world titles and three Olympic gold medals between them and are two of the most experienced riders in the women's peloton.
Visma were happy to let Wolff lead the team in Wevelgem and are hopeful for how she can perform when she joins up with Vos and Ferrand-Prévot at the Tour of Flanders on Sunday.
"She's more or less our main rider, so we made a plan for Imo to follow the best [in Gent-Wevelgem]," Visma DS Jan Boven told Cyclingnews.
"It's a bit exciting also when you are 19 and you are the main woman of Visma-Lease a Bike, that is already something. But it's also nice to race like that at Flanders, she is with Pauline and Marianne."
Wolff has already raced alongside them as Milan-San Remo, and already learned a valuable lesson of self-expression in racing.
"To be honest, you forget what icons they are because they're just such humble, down-to-earth, open and honest people and they're nice to be around," said Wolff.
"They're quite different too, so that's nice just to see that you can win huge bike races, and you don't have to be a stereotypical, super focused, one version of a rider.
"Different types of personalities and different types of riders can win on different courses, and that's been really nice to know that I can just fully be myself and let the performance on the bike speak a bit for itself."
Importantly for the teenage rider is that the pressure is mostly off for her neo-pro season, after achieving her goal of a first pro win so early. That doesn't mean she'll take her foot off the accelerator anytime soon but expect some freedom and more early leadership to aid her development.
"To be honest, at the start of this season, we set only one goal, and that was that I wanted to win a bike race this year – we've done that," Wolff told Cyclingnews.
"But I think at the bigger picture, if I can be a part of a team that wins a bike race like Roubaix, a bike race like Flanders or helps Pauline in the GC for any of the Grand Tours, that's something I've dreamed of since I was very young."
