35-year-old Ryder Hesjedal will call an end to his 18-year long career at the end of this season, his Trek-Segafredo team announced today. The Canadian has not yet decided on his final race, but confirmed he would compete in the Tour of Alberta and the two WorldTour races, the GP Motreal and Quebec.
Hesjedal's one-year contract with Trek-Segafredo promised to revive his Grand Tour ambitions, and he headed into the Giro d'Italia with designs on regaining the podium which he had topped in 2012 when he became the first Canadian to win a Grand Tour.
Even before his Giro fizzled out in the first week, Hesjedal hinted that he was considering retirement. He abandoned the race on stage 14, citing stomach problems. He then lined out at the Critérium du Dauphiné in support of Bauke Mollema, but was not selected for Trek's Tour de France team. He withdrew his name from consideration for Canada's Olympic team in June.
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"It definitely wasn't an easy decision, but it seemed like the right time," Hesjedal said of his decision to retire. "I am ready to move on to other challenges in life. It's been two decades focusing on the competition of cycling in two different disciplines, and now I want to use that experience in other ways."
Hesjedal began his career in mountain biking, racing to medals in the world championships in that discipline at the Junior and U23 ranks before taking an elite silver medal in Lugano in 2003. The next year he switched to the road with US Postal and raced two seasons with Lance Armstrong's team before moving to Phonak in 2006.
In 2013, Hesjedal admitted to doping after Michael Rasmussen published an autobiography in which he claimed to have taught Hesjedal how to take EPO in 2003, but said he had given testimony to that effect to the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) and Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports (CCES) prior to the publication. He claimed he "stopped what I was doing many years before I joined Slipstream Sports".
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