Asked what she thought about Lizzie Deignan's announcement that she is pregnant with her second child and will be taking maternity leave from professional racing with a contract extension to return in 2023 and 2024, Lotte Kopecky laughed, "I'd want a baby, too."

Kopecky spoke about her maternity leave at a pre-race press conference before her road racing season debut with SD Walks at Omloop Het Niusbrod. She expressed her position that with options like maternity leave available, female athletes no longer need to feel that they must end their professional athletic careers when they decide to start a family

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At least in top-tier women's professional cycling, the option for female athletes to take paid leave during pregnancy and resume racing after giving birth is becoming more acceptable, largely thanks to maternity leave clauses in women's world team contracts.

"I want to have a baby too. No, not yet, but I think it's good for women's cycling that it's possible," Kopecky said.

A maternity leave clause introduced into contracts with top teams in 2020 allows female riders to take three months off with 100% of their salary entitlement, followed by another five months off at 50% of salary, according to article 2.13.192.

The current minimum salary is set at €27,500 (employed) and €45,100 (self-employed) in 2022, but Trek Segafredo, to which Digne belongs, has set the base salary for its female team at €40,045 (employed), which will equal that of their male teammates in 2021, €65 ,673 euros (self-employed).

Deignan joined Trek-Segafredo in 2018 during her first pregnancy. She gave birth to her daughter in 2019, after which she successfully returned to professional cycling. She also made history in October by becoming the first woman to win Paris-Roubaix.

Other prominent cyclists who took time off to have families and returned to the highest level include former world champion Marta Bastianelli (Italy). Laura Kenny is also Britain's most decorated Olympian, having won five gold medals and one silver medal in three Olympic Games. Kenny, along with Katie Archibald, won the women's Madison in Tokyo for the first time.

Olympian and five-time world champion Elinor Barker won a silver medal in the team pursuit after learning she was pregnant while competing in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. Barker admitted to Cyclingnews that she reached an agreement with Uno-X and signed the original contract offer while pregnant. She will continue to receive a salary in accordance with her contract, which exceeds the governing body's rules regarding maternity leave, and aims to race the entire season in 2023.

Trek-Segafredo made a similar arrangement with Avi Van Twisk in 2020, where she was paid 100% of her contract. At the time, Van Twisk had not decided whether she would return to professional racing after giving birth and did not want to be pressured into that decision, indicating that her passion for the arts would allow her to pursue a more creative field.

"Imagine if a woman wanted to have a baby and [her employer] didn't give her the opportunity, and that was the case with Laura and Lizzie." Laura was the first woman ever to win the women's Madison at the Olympics, and Lizzie was the first woman ever to win Paris-Roubaix. Those two things would not have happened without those girls having a chance," Barker told Cycling News.

Kopecký's teammate Chantal van de Broeck-Black recently announced that she will postpone her retirement and continue racing until 2024. The former world champion said that having a family was a factor in her decision. Kopecky applauded the team for supporting Van den Broeck-Black's decision, but noted that such an opportunity is not available to everyone in the peloton.

The standard contracts for the 14 women's world teams include minimum salary and maternity clauses, while those signed with the 50 Continental women's teams have no such clause.

"As for Chantal van den Broeck-Black, the team has given her the possibility to return to racing after giving birth. Frankly, at this point, it is not yet possible for all riders. I think it's possible because it's Lizzie Deignan and I think it's possible because it's Chantal van den Broeck-Black. If you're not a top rider, I think it's still pretty difficult," Kopecky said.

"A promising sign for the future," Kopecky said, "yes," and the idea of maternity leave and the return of female athletes to world-class sports after childbirth was not even up for discussion 10 years ago.

"Yes, it is. It's good that Trek and the SD Works team are allowing it. I mean, we don't have to stop cycling professionally or stop being professional athletes just because we want kids, something that would have been unthinkable 10 years ago. Now we can talk about this, and it's great that it's happening. It's a really good evolution," Kopecky said.