Nine elite men (at least) bid farewell to pro road cycling at Il Lombardia and Paris-Tours.
Cor Vos
It’s that time of year. Not only are the sport’s contemporary heroes taking their end-of-season curtain calls before an off-season of weddings, family time and all-inclusive holidays, but a number of riders have pinned on a number for the final time.
Every year it feels like the list of retirees heralds a changing of the guard or a new generation establishing itself, whether that’s really true or not. In 2025, one storyline seems to be centred around sprinters of a certain era, namely the final bows of Alexander Kristoff and Arnaud Démare, two very similar fast men, with Elia Viviani and Caleb Ewan – the Australian a little younger, but still – also bidding adieu.
While Kristoff raced his final race last weekend – Escape’s Iain Treloar spoke with Alexander and Maren Kristoff ahead of this momentous event – and others will bow out in the weeks to come, this past weekend has marked something of a retirement party as Il Lombardia and Paris-Tours set a glorious stage for the swan song of (at least) nine elite men: Rafał Majka, Louis Meintjes, Simone Petilli, Salvatore Puccio and Pieter Serry in Italy; Jonathan Castroviejo, Omar Fraile, Ide Schelling and Démare in France. They join many other similarly aged veterans to call time this year, including Geraint Thomas, Romain Bardet and Michael Woods. (These are all confirmed retirements; the chances are good that a few more from both startlists will hang up their wheels at year’s end.)
Démare’s first Tour de France stage win came in 2017, beating Alexander Kristoff and world champion Peter Sagan (before his infamous disqualification) in Vittel on stage 4, and wearing the French bleu blanc rouge – that’s surely a memory mounted on his wall.
Démare is one of France’s most successful cyclists of all time, and certainly the most prolific of his generation; only three French men in history have taken more than Démare’s 97 wins – Bernard Hinault, Jacques Anquetil and Laurent Jalabert – which include Milan-Sanremo in 2016, two Tour de France stages (2017 and ’18), and eight at the Giro d’Italia, where he also won the points classification twice (2020 and ’22).
This post is for paying subscribers only
Subscribe now
Already have an account? Sign in
Did we do a good job with this story?
👍Yep
👎Nope