“Next year will be my 18th season as a professional. It’s a long time to dedicate your life to being an athlete. I’m ready to live in my comfort zone.”
Lizzie Deignan draws a deep breath in before she tells me that 2025 will be the last year she plans to spend as a professional cyclist. We’re speaking over a fuzzy Zoom call, but I can still sense the composed finality in her voice as she gives me an explanation for her retirement. This is a decision she’s thought about for some time.
“I would like to go for a bike ride and not worry about suffering. That is the reality of being a professional athlete, which I think, unless you’ve been one, it’s hard to put that across to people,” she says. “Sometimes, people would say: why on earth would you retire? It’s such an amazing way to make a living, and it absolutely is, but it’s not coffee rides. It is relentless. It is suffering every day.”
The British woman’s announcement comes as news to me, and may be a surprise for many, because Deignan is still close to the top of her game. As well as playing a crucial team role for Lidl-Trek, 2024 saw her finish 12th at the Olympics, third at the National Championships and fight for stage wins at the Tour of Britain Women. But once you have been a world champion and won races like the Tour of Flanders, Strade Bianche, Paris-Roubaix Femmes, Trofeo Binda and Liège–Bastogne–Liège Femmes, Deignan points out that racing for minor places doesn’t cut it.
“On occasion, there have been some big results this year that almost could have happened, but I suppose there’s no interest for me in coming top five or top 10 in a race that I’ve already won,” she states.
Deignan on her way to winning Paris-Roubaix Femmes in 2021 (Image: Jojo Harper)
Deignan can, in fact, pinpoint the exact moment when she came to the realisation that her chapter as a professional cyclist was drawing to a close. It involved a stormy evening in Glasgow last January, a diverted flight, and a sleepless night.
“I was coming home from training camp and I was on a flight that got diverted to Glasgow instead of Leeds. I landed into the eye of a storm and got home at five o’clock in the morning,” Deignan remembers. “The kids woke up at seven o’clock in the morning, and it was straight back into real life. I just thought, I am pushing the boundaries too much here. I’m trying to be the best athlete I can, the best mother I can, the best wife I can, and there’s…