A back injury forced Chris 'CJ' Sutton into premature retirement at the end of the 2015 season, calling time on a career that included stints with Cofidis, Garmin and Team Sky. Although he didn't know it at the time, Sutton's final race day of his career was an innocuous 121st on stage 5 of the 2015 Eneco Tour.
In retirement, Sutton and his wife Jill have moved back to Sydney, Australia and after a tough first few months of readjustment, extensive osteopath work on his back, Sutton is in a good place and enjoying working with Continental team State of Matter/MAAP as its director sportif and is aiming to continue the role in 2017.
"I am really close with Ben Kersten and he heard that they needed a new DS and put my name forward," Sutton told Cyclingnews of how the deal came about with State of Matter/MAAP. "He got back to me and said 'do you want to be a DS' and I said 'yep' so that was all she wrote really. I was looking to get back in and help out the young guys, the younger generation, because I went through a bit of a rough patch there for a while with depression."
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Sutton credits his osteopath, who he was initially seeing once a week for three-to-four months, for improving his back, and his wife for helping him through and avoid becoming another 'statistic'.
"I went through depression, obviously with my back they way it was, I was forced into early retirement," Sutton explained. "I was nearly going to get the surgery, as at the point in time I wasn't in a very good headspace or place either.
"I think at the end of the day, when you retire on your terms, I still would have ridden my bike. But I still can't do that which probably made it worse. I am a lot better now. I have been seeing an osteopath and she has really fixed me up and the only thing she said she couldn't fix was bulged discs. I was like 'if you could fix them you would be god'. She said she could fix everything that is the problem in your body and if I can't fix this, I will pay for your surgery, which was the reason why I stuck by her. I am glad I did stick with her because she has improved me so much.
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