{"id":20823,"date":"2025-07-24T15:31:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T15:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/20823\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T15:31:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T15:31:07","slug":"former-world-champion-lizzie-deignan-retires-from-cycling-after-announcing-pregnancy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/20823\/","title":{"rendered":"Former world champion Lizzie Deignan retires from cycling after announcing pregnancy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Britain&#8217;s former world champion Lizzie Deignan has announced her retirement with immediate effect after confirming she is pregnant with her third child.<\/p>\n<p>The 36-year-old has been the flag bearer for women&#8217;s road cycling in Britain since claiming a silver medal at the London 2012 Olympics and had planned to see out the season.<\/p>\n<p>Her crowning moment came at the 2015 world championships when she won the women&#8217;s road race in Richmond, out-sprinting Dutchwoman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flashscore.com\/player\/van-der-breggen-anna\/xMMJo284\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Anna van der Breggen<\/a> for gold.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A new chapter in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flashscore.com\/player\/deignan-elizabeth\/vwLzR79L\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Deignan<\/a> story,&#8221; the Lidl-Trek team rider posted on Instagram, alongside a photo of a babygrow.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have this life outside of cycling that gives me so much fulfilment and so much love,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Often people say, &#8216;Retire on the top.&#8217; But I have no ego or necessity to retire at the top. I&#8217;m really happy to go full circle and to have ended my career as somebody that helps other people win bike races again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Deignan enjoyed 43 professional wins, including a stunning victory at the inaugural women&#8217;s Paris-Roubaix in 2021. Other notable wins included Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Strade Bianche and the Tour of Flanders.<\/p>\n<p>She took a career break in 2018 after the birth of daughter Orla, and again in 2022 following the birth of her son Shea.<\/p>\n<p>Her final victory came during a team time trial in the opening stage of La Vuelta Femenina in Spain.<\/p>\n<p>Deignan, who also won a world title on the track in 2009 as part of Britain&#8217;s team pursuit squad, has been a fierce advocate for equality in women&#8217;s professional cycling, long overshadowed by men&#8217;s racing.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I feel like I&#8217;ve carried the torch for quite a long time now, and it&#8217;s really cool that there is now a group of women ready to take over,&#8221; she told Cycling Weekly this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Britain&#8217;s former world champion Lizzie Deignan has announced her retirement with immediate effect after confirming she is pregnant&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-20823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}