Lizzie Deignan, one of Britain’s most successful cyclists, has announced her immediate retirement from professional cycling after sharing the news that she and husband Phil are expecting their third child.
The former world champion, 36, had previously said 2025 would be her final season but has now called time on a career in which she recorded 43 professional wins, among them victories at Paris-Roubaix, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Strade Bianche, the Tour of Flanders and the Women’s Tour.
Deignan took the world title in 2015, a Commonwealth Games gold medal in 2014 and Olympic silver at the London Games in 2012.
After Deignan posted an image of a babygrow on social media, her Lidl-Trek team shared news of her retirement, writing that the “joyful news... subsequently marks Deignan’s immediate retirement from the peloton”.
Deignan took a career break in 2018 for the birth of daughter Orla, returning to win a second Women's Tour title in 2019 before her victories at Liege-Bastogne-Liege and La Course by Le Tour de France followed in 2020, and a brilliant solo win in the first Paris-Roubaix Femmes came in 2021.
A second career break came in 2022 for the birth of her son Shea but, having previously considered retirement, Deignan said she wanted to race on in a support role for younger team-mates.
“Cycling is totally underestimated as a team sport, right?” Deignan said. “I grew up in cycling and I've seen this massive shift that I'm so proud to be a part of, but the basics are the same.
“You start as a domestique, you work your way up, you become a leader. Often people say, ‘Retire on the top.’ But I have no ego or necessity to retire at the top. I'm really happy to go full circle and to have ended my career as somebody that helps other people win bike races again.
“I have this life outside of cycling that gives me so much fulfillment and so much love.”
Deignan's last race was the Copenhagen Sprint last month, which came a couple of weeks after she competed in the Tour of Britain Women for the last time. Her last win came, fittingly, in the team time trial at this year’s Vuelta Espana Femenina.
Speaking to the PA news agency ahead of that race, Deignan said she was proud to have been part of an era of unprecedented growth in women's cycling.
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She said part of what had kept her racing on was the growth of new races that she wanted to be part of, having not had those opportunities earlier in her career.
“I think if I had retired any earlier than now I would have had regrets, definitely, sitting at home watching all these opportunities unfold,” Deignan said.
“I can be really proud and pleased with the last five, six years of my career where I've got to feel truly like a professional, to be respected and to have opportunities equal to the men.”
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