Tom Dumoulin: Jumbo-Visma rider announces he will retire from cycling at the end of the season
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ByEurosport
Updated 03/06/2022 at 12:59 GMT
Tom Dumoulin will retire from cycling at the end of the season. The 2017 Giro d'Italia winner took a break from the sport at the start of 2021 for personal reasons before coming back to win a silver medal at the Olympics. However, he was unable to rediscover his best road form and has now decided to retire from the sport. Dumoulin added he is not sure what he will do when he retires from cycling.
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Jumbo-Visma rider Tom Dumoulin has announced that he will retire from professional cycling at the end of the season.
The Dutch rider, who won a time trial silver medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics last year, competed at the Giro d'Italia last month but faded in the mountains before eventually pulling out of the race.
Dumoulin's contract is due to expire at the end of this year and it is then that he will leave the sport.
"I decided that 2022 will be my last year as a professional cyclist,” he wrote on his social media accounts.
"In 2020 I had a very difficult year and at the end of that year I got over-trained and burned out.
"At the end of 2020, beginning of 2021 I was only a shadow of myself and thus decided at the time to take a break away from cycling to think about my future.
"But despite how good it occasionally still was: many times, and especially this year, it has been a frustrating path, at which my body felt tired and still does feel tired.
"As soon as the load in training or races gets higher, I suffer fatigue, aches and injuries instead of improving. The effort in training did not often lead to the desired performances.
"For a while now there has been a imbalance between my 100% dedication, everything that I do and sacrifice for my sport and what I subsequently get out of it in return.
"With a lot of patience and a very cautious approach, I’m convinced that I could get back to my full potential on the bike. But that would be a long and patient road, with no guarantees of success. I choose not to take that road, but to quit my active cycling instead and to take a new and unknown path."
Dumoulin says he will target the time trial at the UCI Road World Championships in Australia later this year, but the remainder of his race schedule - and his post-cycling career plans - are yet to be decided.
“I don’t know yet what I want to do after my active cycling career," he added.
"I also don’t really want to know at this moment. But I do know that my love for the bike will always keep me connected to the world of cycling one way or another.
"I’m very curious what the future will hold for me. I feel happy and grateful and I now already look back on my career with a lot of pride."
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