{"id":411285,"date":"2026-01-14T01:59:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T01:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/411285\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T01:59:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T01:59:10","slug":"he-told-me-it-wouldnt-get-any-better-than-this-simon-yates-considered-retirement-after-giro-ditalia-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/411285\/","title":{"rendered":"‘He told me it wouldn\u2019t get any better than this’ \u2013 Simon Yates considered retirement after Giro d\u2019Italia win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Simon Yates<\/a>\u2019s shock immediate retirement<\/a> from cycling was something that had been on his mind ever since he won the Giro d\u2019Italia<\/a>, one of his longtime friends in the sport has revealed.<\/p>\n

Owain Doull raced with Yates as a junior and the pair were also on British Cycling\u2019s Academy back in 2012 and 2013. Though the pair had never been on the same road team in their WorldTour careers, they have maintained a friendship and were set to both ride for Visma-Lease a Bike<\/a> in 2026, after Doull had made the switch from EF Education-EasyPost<\/a>. That was until Yates announced his sudden departure from the sport just a few days into the year.<\/p>\n

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Speaking to Cycling Weekly at Visma\u2019s winter training camp in eastern Spain this week, Doull said that unlike others he was \u201cnot massively\u201d surprised by Yates\u2019s decision, pointing to a conversation he had with him on the final day of the Giro last year.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI was with him on the last stage of the Giro and I said congrats to him,\u201d Doull recalled. \u201cI said I would have preferred it if Richard [Carapaz, Doull\u2019s then-EF teammate] had won but if I wanted anyone else to win it it would have been him so I was super happy for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he kind of said to me back then, \u2018To be honest, I think this might be me done\u2019. I asked what he meant and he said, \u2018I think I might just stop here. It\u2019s not going to get any better than this\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously this was the last day when you\u2019re in Rome, you\u2019ve just done three weeks, and I don\u2019t think he was expecting to be standing in Rome in the pink jersey, so it was a lot to take in for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe then went to the Tour [de France] and other races but I think it was always in the back of his mind. Obviously I saw him at the December [Visma] camp as well, and he was getting ready for the season and he seemed happy and motivated, but I think that overriding feeling of wanting to stop was a big thing and I have to say chapeau.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe\u2019s also getting paid a lot of money to race his bike and he\u2019s saying, \u2018Actually, no, I\u2019ll pass on that. I want to finish at the highest level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doull, 32, added that the pressure Yates and other riders of his ilk are under makes it entirely understandable that he came to the decision he did. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of sacrifice, a lot of risk, a lot of time away, especially when you\u2019ve been doing it at Simon\u2019s level for so, so long,\u201d Doull continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cI work just as hard as the other guys but the level of expectation and demand is a lot less for me, so that\u2019s probably why I would be happy to do this for another four, five years or whenever that time comes for me.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBut for those top guys, the level of commitment, scrutiny, and dedication they\u2019re under is a lot. I just think chapeau for not just taking the cheque and doing nothing and instead finishing when he was ready to finish. I think that\u2019s admirable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matteo Jorgenson rode the Tour de France<\/a> with Yates last year, a race in which the Briton took a memorable stage victory in the Massif Central. Jorgenson\u2019s side of the story was different to Doull\u2019s in that he had received no indication that the 33-year-old Yates was close to hanging up his racing wheels.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith my teammates now we talk about it and ask if we were surprised, and if we got any feeling that he was already checked out or anything,\u201d Jorgenson said. \u201cNone of us really can [say yes] because he was so professional last year and it was really the full Simon Yates in every race he was at.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was very professional last year and was always present in all the races and training camps that I was with him at.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like Simon was talking about it last year or that it was something on his mind publicly or with us. Probably it was with his intimate circle and the people he was close with it was something he talked about.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Simon\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Jorgenson shared a story from Visma\u2019s pre-Tour altitude camp in Tignes in the French Alps last June to highlight Yates\u2019s professionalism. \u201cI didn\u2019t win the Giro, I don\u2019t know what that experience is like so I can\u2019t judge him for it. All I saw was that he won the Giro and then a few days later he drove to altitude and joined me and the other guys preparing for the Tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I thought then was that this guy is extremely, extremely dedicated and he was. It\u2019s an extremely hard thing to do in that he hadn\u2019t had any celebration. People imagine you win a Grand Tour and you go out and celebrate for a while but it\u2019s not really the reality of cycling; there\u2019s always another race.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t judge people for the decisions they make and I actually come away with it with even more respect for him because I know it\u2019s a decision that wasn\u2019t easy. I am sure he has good reasons. You only know someone\u2019s experience when you\u2019re the one living it so I just applaud that he was willing to take a hard decision and be confident with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Visma team manager Richard Plugge was also similarly shocked by Yates\u2019s decision, and the Dutch boss explained how the two-time Grand Tour winner explained to him that he\u2019d be bowing out.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe called us over the Christmas period, we had a good talk and it was a clear message,\u201d Plugge said. \u201cIf someone calls you and says I want to retire, what are you going to say? Don\u2019t do it? No, it doesn\u2019t work like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe will have thought about it and he did and we also know him as someone who thinks a lot about things and then comes up with a good idea, his own idea, so I knew when he called me he knew he had had enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very sad that he left us, but on the other hand, like Jonas [Vingegaard] said, we have respect for the way he did it. He said I want to quit, I want to retire, I want to leave, and that\u2019s his choice.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course it would have been better if he told us in September but we can\u2019t dwell on that for a very long time. It is what it is and we have to adapt to it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Simon Yates\u2019s shock immediate retirement from cycling was something that had been on his mind ever since he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-411285","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411285","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=411285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}