There’s arguably only one thing that all bike riders have in common when the moment comes that they retire: it’s about pulling the plug on their career. Beyond that, the reasons for doing so are as many and varied as they were for getting into the sport in the first place, and the point, too, when riders opt to pull down the curtain on their career is equally varied.
Do you opt to go out at the top of the sport and with all guns blazing, a la Bernard Hinault in 1986? Or is it better to finish with a small-scale criterium in the middle of nowhere in Spain, like Miguel Indurain? This year, just to take two examples of star names, Geraint Thomas opted to end his career on home soil in Cardiff, just a few miles away from Maindy Velodrome where it all began for him aged 10. Alexander Kristoff, on the other hand, ended with a crash-out in the Tour of Langkawi, literally half a world away from his native Norway.
Cycling is a sport which is long on nostalgia and tradition but with a very short memory in other ways, and these absences, no matter where the final bow was taken, will quickly be put behind us as soon as the new season begins and the first flurry of competition gets underway. Which makes it only right to pay tribute to the departing class of 2025 and – in alphabetical order – remember how much they gave to the sport, just before the curtain falls on their careers for good.
Consummate tactician who used well-developed race instincts to see off potentially stronger rivals
- Top victories: Road World Championships 2013; Tour de France, three stages; Vuelta a España, stage; Tour de Suisse x3 plus five stages; Grand Prix de Montréal; Japan Cup.
- Career win tally: 33
As Spain’s Joaquim Rodríguez and Alejandro Valverde realised to their immense cost in the 2013 World Championships, you could never rule out Rui Costa. In the final kilometres of the rain-soaked Firenze Worlds elite men’s road race, Spain was at a numerical advantage over Portugal’s lone rider and Italy’s Vincenzo Nibali, and when Rodriguez attacked, it looked like it should have been game over. However, Costa gambled – rightly – on Valverde failing to chase down and shadow his pursuit of Rodríguez, leaving Rodríguez’s teammate utterly exposed when Costa bridged across. The net result was gold for Portugal, with Rodríguez, who took the silver,…
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