World champions, Olympic medallists and a Tour de France winner – these are the riders retiring in 2025
More than 50 pros are hanging up their bikes this year, chapeau to them all


Italian opera singer Andrea Bocelli's 'Time to Say Goodbye' – 'Con te partirò' in Italian – is one of the best-selling singles of all time. You've almost certainly heard it, even if it was only when he performed it to Leicester City fans in 2016, the year the team won the Premier League, remember?
For a song about the sadness of farewells, it was a dreary choice, perhaps, to soundtrack such an uplifting moment. I've since found it playing on loop in my head, as the cycling world bids adieu to a generation of world, Olympic, and Grand Tour champions who are retiring this year.
According to ProCyclingStats, more than 50 pro riders, from across the men's and women's WorldTours and ProTours, have decided to finish their careers in 2025.
Some of the announcements have been more publicised than others. At one end, there's Geraint Thomas, whose Tour of Britain send-off attracted fans in their thousands. At the other, there's Alexander Kristoff, who clocked off with 98 pro wins and a DNF at Malaysia's Tour de Langkawi.
Here's a closer look at some of the riders who are calling it a day, as well as a list of all 33 men and 19 women retiring. Roll end credits.
Geraint Thomas
What more is there to say about Geraint Thomas? A double Olympic track champion, winner of the 2018 Tour de France, and a widely recognised top bloke, the Welshman is the highest profile member of the Class of '25.
Having come through the British Cycling Academy, Thomas joined his first pro team, Barloworld, in 2007, but it was with Team Sky, and its successor Ineos Grenadiers, that he made his name, part of the squad for 16 seasons. He is now expected to remain with the team in a senior management role.
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Fittingly, the 39-year-old chose his home stage race, September's Tour of Britain Men, as his last. My colleague Adam Becket was among the crowds that gathered at Cardiff Castle to wave goodbye to the Welshman. He wrote on the day: "The celebrations will continue into the rainy Cardiff night, a 'few beers with the boys' promised. Thomas has ridden off, but his achievements remain. Diolch."
Ellen van Dijk
It often goes unnoticed quite how successful Ellen van Dijk's career has been. Over two decades, the Dutchwoman has won a staggering 70 times, including five elite European titles, a Tour of Flanders, and three world time trial championships.
Van Dijk is one of a few former world champions leaving the women's peloton this year; earlier in the season, her Lidl-Trek team-mate and 2015 road world champion Lizzie Deignan, as well as compatriot Chantal van den Broek-Blaak, winner in 2017, both too called it a day.
Best known for her time trialling abilities – "that's my big passion and my big love" – Van Dijk also retires as a former world record holder on the track, having broken the UCI Hour Record in 2022.
Marta Cavalli
Cycling fans will remember Marta Cavalli as 2022's Queen of Spring. That year, with no prior WorldTour wins to her name, she prevailed at Amstel Gold Race and La Flèche Wallonne, also scoring top-sixes at Paris-Roubaix and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
Since then, though, the former Italian road champion's career has been rocked by injuries. She abandoned the 2022 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift after being struck at high-speed by another rider, and in 2024, crashed at an early-season training camp, before being hit by a car driver in July. She only raced five days that year for FDJ-SUEZ.
Joining Picnic PostNL in 2025 did not give Cavalli the impetus she hoped. "The last few years have been very difficult due to continuous ups and downs," the 27-year-old wrote on Instagram.
"After a year with peace of mind I can say I don’t feel part of this world anymore and it’s time to say goodbye to the group because here my work is done."
Rafał Majka
"To all the young talents coming up. This is the ONE you should look up to," wrote Tadej Pogačar on Instagram ahead of his team-mate Rafał Majka's retirement at this year's Il Lombardia.
For the past five years, Majka has served as a loyal mountain domestique at UAE Team Emirates, but was once a Grand Tour rider in his own right. In 2015, he finished on the podium at the Vuelta a España, his best Giro d'Italia placing is fifth (2016), and he has won the Tour's mountains classification twice, plus three stages for good measure.
This year was Majka's 15th as a pro, having stepped up with Saxo Bank in 2011.
The sprint kings
The sprinting Hall of Fame seems to have an unusually high number of inductees this year.
Among them are a generation's worth of Grand Tour stage winners: Alexander Kristoff, Arnaud Démare, Elia Viviani, Caleb Ewan and Giacomo Nizzolo.
It would take too long to list the hundreds of wins they've amassed between them, so I'll give you a headline result from each: Kristoff earned the first yellow jersey with his opening stage win at the 2020 Tour de France; Démare won Milan-San Remo in 2016; Elia Viviani is a former Olympic champion in the omnium; Caleb Ewan won on the Champs-Élysées at the Tour in 2019; and Nizzolo was European champion in 2020.
Three of the retiring fastmen also came commendably close to breaking a century of pro victories: Kristoff (98), Démare (97) and Viviani (90).
Retiring male pros
Rider | Nationality | Team at retirement | Age at retirement |
---|---|---|---|
Pierre Latour | France | TotalEnergies | 32 |
Kristian Sbaragli | Italy | Team Solution Tech - Vini Fantini | 35 |
Geoffrey Bouchard | France | Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale | 33 |
Louis Meintjes | South Africa | Intermarché-Wanty | 33 |
Anthony Perez | France | Cofidis | 34 |
Omar Fraile | Spain | Ineos Grenadiers | 35 |
Daniel McLay | Great Britain | Visma-Lease a Bike | 33 |
Tim Declercq | Belgium | Lidl-Trek | 36 |
Geraint Thomas | Great Britain | Ineos Grenadiers | 39 |
Gianluca Brambilla | Italy | Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team | 38 |
Alessandro De Marchi | Italy | Jayco AlUla | 39 |
Anthony Delaplace | France | Arkéa-B&B Hotels | 36 |
Rafał Majka | Poland | UAE Team Emirates-XRG | 36 |
Pieter Serry | Belgium | Soudal Quick-Step | 37 |
Adrien Petit | France | Intermarché-Wanty | 35 |
Geoffrey Soupe | France | TotalEnergies | 37 |
Giacomo Nizzolo | Italy | Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team | 36 |
Salvatore Puccio | Italy | Ineos Grenadiers | 36 |
Alexander Kristoff | Norway | Uno-X Mobility | 38 |
Arnaud Démare | France | Arkéa-B&B Hotels | 34 |
Elia Viviani | Italy | Lotto | 36 |
Jonathan Castroviejo | Spain | Ineos Grenadiers | 38 |
Loïc Vliegen | Belgium | Wagner Bazin WB | 32 |
Simone Petilli | Italy | Intermarché-Wanty | 32 |
Michael Woods | Canada | Israel-Premier Tech | 39 |
Ryan Gibbons | South Africa | Lidl-Trek | 31 |
Alex Colman | Belgium | Team Flanders-Baloise | 27 |
Ide Schelling | Netherlands | XDS Astana | 27 |
Martijn Budding | Netherlands | Unibet Tietema Rockets | 30 |
Eddy Finé | France | Cofidis | 27 |
Romain Bardet | France | Picnic PostNL | 34 |
Caleb Ewan | Australia | Ineos Grenadiers | 30 |
Lars van den Berg | Netherlands | Groupama-FDJ | 26 |
Retiring female pros
Rider | Nationality | Team at retirement | Age at retirement |
---|---|---|---|
Sarah Roy | Australia | EF Education-Oatly | 39 |
Eugénie Duval | France | FDJ-SUEZ | 32 |
Anna Trevisi | Italy | Liv AlUla Jayco | 33 |
Ane Santesteban | Spain | Laboral Kutxa - Fundación Euskadi | 35 |
Maria Giulia Confalonieri | Italy | Uno-X Mobility | 32 |
Ellen van Dijk | Netherlands | Lidl-Trek | 38 |
Eugenia Bujak | Slovenia | Cofidis | 36 |
Valerie Demey | Belgium | VolkerWessels | 31 |
Elizabeth Holden | Great Britain | UAE Team ADQ | 28 |
Marta Cavalli | Italy | Picnic PostNL | 27 |
Tereza Neumanova | Czech Republic | UAE Team ADQ | 27 |
Coline Raby | France | St Michel - Preference Home - Auber93 WE | 22 |
Carlijn Achtereekte | Netherlands | Visma-Lease a Bike | 35 |
Ségolène Thomas | France | St Michel - Preference Home - Auber93 WE | 27 |
Lotta Henttala | Finland | EF Education-Oatly | 36 |
Elizabeth Deignan | Great Britain | Lidl-Trek | 36 |
Ella Simpson | France | St Michel - Preference Home - Auber93 WE | 22 |
Megan Armitage | Ireland | EF Education-Oatly | 28 |
Chantal van den Broek-Blaak | Netherlands | SD Worx-Protime | 35 |
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Tom joined Cycling Weekly as a news and features writer in the summer of 2022, having previously contributed as a freelancer. He is fluent in French and Spanish, and holds a master's degree in International Journalism. Since 2020, he has been the host of The TT Podcast, offering race analysis and rider interviews.
An enthusiastic cyclist himself, Tom likes it most when the road goes uphill, and actively seeks out double-figure gradients on his rides. His best result is 28th in a hill-climb competition, albeit out of 40 entrants.
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