{"id":388817,"date":"2026-01-03T10:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T10:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/388817\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T10:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T10:46:08","slug":"the-end-of-a-book-the-end-of-a-childhood-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/388817\/","title":{"rendered":"The end of a book, the end of a childhood dream"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/kobe-goossens\" title=\"Kobe Goossens\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kobe Goossens<\/a> has announced the end of his professional cycling career at the age of 29, closing the chapter on a journey that saw him ride all three Grand Tours and claim two professional victories. The Belgian rider revealed his decision at the beginning of 2026, confirming that 2025 marked his final season in the peloton.Goossens announced his decision and future plans in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DS9hon7CEk8\/?img_index=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">a message shared on Instagram<\/a>. \u201c2025 was the end of my career as a rider. The end of a book, the end of a childhood dream. 2026 will be the start of a new book,\u201d he wrote, adding that his next chapter will be in the Belgian real estate sector.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>The situation was quite ironic for Goossens, who had made his professional debut within the Lotto setup, first with the development team in 2018-2019 and then with the WorldTour squad in 2020-2021. After leaving Lotto, Goossens joined Intermarch\u00e9-Wanty in 2022, where he spent the final four seasons of his career.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"280\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1133351444-64ef0b1ec8bba.jpg@webp.webp\" class=\"w-auto h-auto\" alt=\"1133351444\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Goossens is another rider retiring before the age of 30<\/p>\n<p>An overview of Goossens&#8217; careerIt was with Intermarch\u00e9-Wanty that Goossens enjoyed the most successful period of his career. At the start of the 2023 season, he claimed the only two professional victories of his career, winning the <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/trofeo-andratx\" title=\"Trofeo Andratx\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Trofeo Andratx<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/trofeo-serra-de-tramuntana\" title=\"Trofeo Serra de Tramuntana\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Trofeo Serra de Tramuntana<\/a> back to back.<\/p>\n<p>Over the course of his career, Goossens took part in all three Grand Tours: twice the Tour de France, once the Giro d\u2019Italia and three times the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a. Amongst his best results were a sixth place on a stage of the 2021 Giro d\u2019Italia and a tenth place on a stage of the 2023 Vuelta.<\/p>\n<p>His final season was heavily disrupted by illness. In 2025, Goossens raced only 19 days after falling sick during Paris-Nice. His final race of 2025 was at the Heistse Pijl on June 7 (he finished in 132th place), which ultimately became the last race of his professional career.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kobe Goossens has announced the end of his professional cycling career at the age of 29, closing the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,165646,208373,85,208375,208374],"class_list":["post-388817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-intermarche-wanty","tag-kobe-goossens","tag-sports","tag-trofeo-andratx","tag-trofeo-serra-de-tramuntana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}