EF Education-Oatly’s Lotta Henttala has retired from professional cycling as she is pregnant with her second child.
Henttala, who turned professional in 2014, is one of Finland’s most successful cyclists, six times the national champion, and was at one time one of the premier female sprinters. She has already come back from maternity leave once in 2023 after having her first child in 2022.
“This will be my second child, and for me, I think it’s a little bit too hard to come back again with two kids. I think it’s my time to retire,” Henttala said.
“Plus, the peloton is getting so strong! I don’t know if I have that much to give to racing anymore. Maybe I would, but retiring had been in my mind a little bit, so I think this is the natural way to exit.”
However, she hasn’t raced since February, due to illness and then becoming pregnant – she is now 21 weeks along. Though other riders have come back after a second child, Henttala said it wasn’t difficult to decide to stop racing.
“After the off-season, when I started training again, I was still thinking about that crash, and it was still mentally affecting me. But when I won Trofeo Marratxi-Felanitx in January, of course, I started thinking, ‘OK, maybe one more year after this.’ Then, I got sick and missed the Classics.
“I spoke to my [former teammate] Coryn Labecki before I found out I was pregnant again, and she said that if it happens, then it’s meant to be, and I was already thinking that way. That’s how I know it’s time to leave cycling,” she said.
As well as being one of the female cyclists who pioneered coming back to race at the top level after motherhood, Henttala – Lotta Lepistö before she married – has also been an influential figure in Finnish cycling, a country with relatively few professional cyclists.
“I’m from Finland and we’re not a very…
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