Cadel Evans has announced he’ll retire from cycling in early 2015, partly due to a poorer-than-expected performance in this year’s Giro d’Italia where he targeted the win but finished eighth.
Evans, who won the world championship road race in 2009 and the Tour de France in 2011, has revealed his last ever event will be his own inaugural Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race in early February.
Before that he’ll race the Australian championships and Tour Down Under (TDU) in January.
Evans, who is 37, said the decision was formed by the fact it was increasingly hard to leave his family at home.
But May’s Giro also made him realise he was no longer performing at the high level he, and his BMC team, expected.
“That showed, at least in the three-week races, that the chance of winning another grand tour is probably past me,” Evans told reporters in Ponferrada ahead of the 2014 world championship road race.
“These things are not easy to accept but you have to accept (it).
“Maybe now is a good time to say thank you and I’ll watch from the sideline.”
He expected to leave the sport without any regrets despite “a lot of second places”.
“I gave it everything,” he said this week.
“It’s 20 years this year that I’ve been a full-time cyclist so I’ve had a good go.
Source: AAP