Nacer Bouhanni has called an end to his time as a professional cyclist, with the French sprinter having struggled through his final season as he attempted to come back from a nightmare crash in 2022 and once again find the speed he had displayed through the rest of his 13-year career.
The Arkéa-Samsic rider, who won a total of 70 in his career, crashed at the Tour of Turkey in April of 2022, suffering a fracture of the first cervical vertebrae and finishing his season just as it was beginning to gather steam.
Bouhanni returned to racing after the neck injury at the start of the 2023 season, but the results just didn’t come with the rider delivering the worst season of his career, with just one podium finish to show for his efforts.
“After my serious accident last year that cost me a severe fracture of my cervical cord and a lot of rehab, I became a shadow of myself,” said Bouhanni in an Instagram post announcing his retirement.
“I fought body and soul to try to get back to my level in vain. Life decided differently.”
Bouhanni has spent his career in a trio of French teams. He started out as a trainee with Francaise des Jeux in late 2010, then moved onto Cofidis in 2015 before making the shift to Arkéa-Samsic in 2020 for the final four seasons of his career.
“I’ve been seriously contemplating this decision for several months,” said Bouhanni of his retirement announcement.
Bouhanni has a palmares that includes three stage wins at both the Vuelta a España and Giro d’Italia, with the most prolific years of his career coming from 2013 to 2016, where he delivered a victory tally of 11 for four seasons running.
There were lows that extended beyond the 2022 crash and fightback in recent seasons as well, notably the GP Cholet-Pays De Loire incident where during the sprint he changed lines and bumped Jake Stewart into the barriers. He was disqualified and subsequently received a two month suspension for dangerous sprinting but was also subject to a flood of racial abuse online afterwards.
“I started cycling at age 6, and it quickly became a passion,” said Bouhanni. “70 victories, ups, downs, beautiful and not so beautiful encounters, joys, disappointments, but I’ll keep only the best.”
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