{"id":803741,"date":"2026-07-16T10:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T10:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/803741\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T10:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T10:30:11","slug":"mads-pedersen-announces-retirement-plans-and-its-early","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/803741\/","title":{"rendered":"Mads Pedersen announces retirement plans, and it’s early"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mads Pedersen<\/a> announced on AftenTour<\/a> that he plans to retire as a professional cyclist at the end of 2029. The 30-year-old Dane from Lidl-Trek<\/a>, who currently holds the green jersey at the Tour de France<\/a>, sees that year\u2019s World Cycling Championships in Copenhagen as the ultimate culmination of his already illustrious career.<\/p>\n

Pedersen has a lifetime contract with Lidl-Trek and will therefore not be changing teams anymore. \u201cEverything comes to an end. For me, that will be the day I can no longer compete for the win. Then I won\u2019t belong here anymore. It will be very difficult for me to change roles as a rider\u2014from a leader and winner to someone who always has to help out.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, at the end of 2029, the former world champion appears set to bring his career to a close in Denmark. \u201cFor me, it\u2019s a special place to end our careers. The plan is for me to retire from cycling after the World Championships in Copenhagen,\u201d said the powerhouse.<\/p>\n

Make no mistake: Pedersen won\u2019t be resting on his laurels in the coming years. \u201cPeople shouldn\u2019t think that I\u2019ve already made my retirement plans and know what I\u2019m going to do next. I\u2019m still in a bubble where it\u2019s all about the green jersey and that darn Monument that I\u2019m missing.\u201d’ Pedersen hasn\u2019t won a Monument yet, and that\u2019s what drives him the most\u2014besides the green jersey, which he looks set to win this year. \u201cAnd once I have a Monument, I\u2019ll want another one,\u201d he assures us.<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"pog<\/p>\n

Mads Pedersen on the podium in the race he would most like to win: Paris-Roubaix.<\/p>\n

Pedersen noticed problems among teammates with families<\/p>\n

Pedersen has two main reasons why he sees 2029 as his retirement year. \u201cIt takes a toll on the body. I also have a wife at home, and at some point we want to start a family. We\u2019re now reaching an age where that\u2019s going to happen. I\u2019ve had teammates in the past who had problems with their family life, perhaps because their father wasn\u2019t home. That hurt me to see at the time, and I don\u2019t want to end up that way myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

“Then I’d rather end my career a little earlier and start a family, because life is long. And I’ve already achieved a lot of what I wanted to achieve in sports\u2014and I believe I’ll achieve the last few things as well before I retire,” the Dane concludes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mads Pedersen announced on AftenTour that he plans to retire as a professional cyclist at the end of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":803742,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,49602,63568,85,346968],"class_list":["post-803741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-lidl-trek","tag-mads-pedersen","tag-sports","tag-tour-de-france-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803741","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=803741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}