In 2003 Cooke won La Flèche Wallonne Féminine, the Amstel Gold Race, the GP de Plouay and the GP San Francisco. She was the 2003 UCI Women's Road World Cup champion, youngest to win the competition and the first Briton. She came third in the world road championship. Cooke was voted BBC Wales Sports Personality of the Year. She hit a stationary police motorbike in June at the Tour du Grand Montréal required stitches in her left knee. Three weeks later she crashed again at the Giro de Trentino and had to miss 4 weeks of racing in July and August.