{"id":303513,"date":"2025-07-30T09:02:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T09:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/303513\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T09:02:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T09:02:10","slug":"the-peloton-is-not-my-place-any-more-ellen-van-dijk-retires-due-to-fear-of-crashes-and-further-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/303513\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The peloton is not my place any more’ – Ellen van Dijk retires due to fear of crashes and further injury"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ellen van Dijk<\/a> (Lidl-Trek) has announced she will retire at the end of 2025, bringing down the curtain on a 20-year career that included 70 victories, three world time trial titles, five European titles and a solo win at the Tour of Flanders<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Van Dijk’s retirement marks a turning point for the LIdl-Trek<\/a> women’s team, with Lizzie Deignan also recently announcing her retirement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Van Dijk admitted that the fears of racing in the modern peloton and the crashes and injuries she has suffered over the years played a part in her decision to retire.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s been a very difficult decision for me, I really love the life of a professional cyclist, I really see it as a privilege. I love time trialling, it\u2019s no secret. That\u2019s my big passion and my big love. It still is and it will always be,” she explained.<\/p>\n

“I also love road cycling, but especially in the last two years, I had a lot of nasty crashes, and this for sure makes me more scared on the bike in the peloton, and it makes me lose the real love of the road racing. Because of the dangers of the sport, I cannot enjoy the road cycling as much as I would like to any more. I feel that the peloton is not my place any more, and it\u2019s time for a new generation.<\/p>\n

“I found it a very difficult decision because I love to have a goal every day, to be outside, to train and to feel good about it and especially to always try to improve. I was waiting for finally one moment where I knew it was enough, and it came.<\/p>\n

“I had a good spring this year, so when that was going well I didn\u2019t feel retirement calling, but I\u2019ve had some nasty crashes in the past two years and after the spring this year I broke my shoulder and in my first race coming back from that, the Baloise Tour, I was involved in a hard crash in the middle of the peloton. At that moment, I realised that I don\u2019t want this anymore. We started the next day in the rain, and I thought \u2018no\u2019, this is not where I feel at home anymore. For me that was the moment where I knew I was done with racing in the peloton.\u201d<\/p>\n

The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

38-year-old Van Dijk won 41 time trials and is a former Hour Record holder. Her time trialling talents also helped her teammates to collective victories in team time trials, the most recent at the Vuelta Espa\u00f1a Femenina<\/a> this spring. Lidl-Trek won the team time trial by three seconds, and Van Dijk pulled on the race leader’s red jersey.<\/p>\n

In 2023, Van Dijk took time out from her racing career to give birth to her son, Faas. Within six months, she was back racing and winning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very proud of my whole career. Of course, of the wins, but I\u2019m also proud of the last two years where, as a family, we really had to be a team to get the best out of me, and I\u2019m proud of how my partner Benjamin managed that with Faas,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s been super special to experience these past two years as a family and all the memories I have from that are super special and I will treasure them for sure.<\/p>\n

\u201cCycling means a lot to me and gave me a lot of great chances in life, and very thankful for everything that cycling gave to me. I\u2019m especially thankful to Lidl-Trek. This is my seventh year with the team, the longest time I\u2019ve been with one team, and that\u2019s not for no reason. I really feel at home with this team, and it means a lot to me what this team did for women\u2019s cycling. Trek always believed in women\u2019s cycling and invested a lot in it and has played a big role in making women\u2019s cycling what it is today.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if I look forward to my retirement. I don\u2019t know yet what I\u2019m going to do, but in general I feel very thankful for everything in my career and I would like to make that message very clear.\u201d<\/p>\n

Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our Tour de France Femmes coverage. Don’t miss any of the breaking news, reports, and analysis from one of the biggest women’s stage races of the season. <\/strong>Find our more<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ellen van Dijk (Lidl-Trek) has announced she will retire at the end of 2025, bringing down the curtain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-303513","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114941378141566777","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}