The 33-year-old stunned the cycling world by announcing his retirement on Wednesday, but the understated, unexpected move is quintessentially Simon Yates
On a random Wednesday afternoon in January, on the cusp of the new cycling season, Simon Yates announced his retirement. Perhaps anticipating the reaction, he wrote in a farewell address: “This may come as a surprise to many, but it is not a decision I have made lightly. I have been thinking about it for a long time, and it now feels like the right moment to step away from the sport.”
One of the oddities of an athlete’s life is wrestling with the idea that, at some point, you have to call it quits. There is a school of thought that you should know when the time is right, that you should go gracefully, rather than clinging on helplessly as your body starts to betray you and fresher, hungrier competitors supersede you.
Evidently, this last is a fate that Yates wanted nothing to do with. Instead, he retires right after arguably the best season of his life.
The defining image of Yates will be him in pink, lifting the Giro d’Italia trophy high into the stunning blue sky of a summer evening in Rome. His victory last June was the sort of story a scriptwriter might think required too much suspension of disbelief, even for Hollywood. A rider some thought, had missed his chance, battling back on the same climb that had killed his ambitions of winning the same race seven years earlier, and catapulting himself into the race lead. This time there was to be no losing it.
“While the victories will always stand out, the harder days and setbacks were just as important. They taught me resilience and patience, and made the successes mean even more,” he wrote in his farewell.
He has certainly been a poster boy for resilience; he may have thought he’d never have a better chance to win the Giro after that heartbreak. But years later he beat one of the sport’s biggest young talents, and plenty of flashier names, with sheer grit, determination, and hope.
It was a dream start to life at Visma-Lease a Bike, which he moved to ahead of 2025 for something of a second act. He trod a slightly different path to many of his contemporaries from British cycling’s golden era, the Geraint Thomases and Chris Froomes. He never rode for the Team Sky juggernaut, taking a lower profile at Orica-GreenEdge. 11 of his 12 seasons as a professional cyclist were spent with the Australian outfit, before switching to Visma. In his words, the move was “to get the most out of myself”.
That he did. He went from his Giro victory to another stage win at the Tour de France, six years after his first two: 150km in a breakaway with some of the best climbers in the sport, all of whom he outlasted. Having won all of that, he may have felt there was nothing left to achieve. His season fizzled out, with two DNFs at late-season races in Canada.
But still, the news has come as a surprise, and the timing of the announcement is unusual.
The 33-year-old had a contract until the end of 2026. He was front and centre at this year’s Giro d’Italia route reveal at the start of December; he attended the team’s December training camp; Visma were still posting photos of him a week ago. He is still pictured at the top of their website, alongside the squad’s other headline names: Jonas Vingegaard, Wout van Aert, Pauline Ferrand-Prevot, and the like.
Most riders call it quits at the end of the year, rather than partway through pre-season. Team politics may have had something to do with the decision.
He said at the Giro route reveal that he would “love” to defend his title – “How many people are able to come back and have the No 1 on their back at a grand tour?” – but emphasised that there were still team decisions to be made, discussions he called “quite exhausting”.
If rumours are correct that Jonas Vingegaard will target the Giro, the only grand tour he is missing from his palmares, Yates would have had to settle for playing second fiddle, or perhaps been sent elsewhere. Having proved he is still capable of winning grand tours, that may not have felt enough to justify another year of one of the world’s most physically brutal sports.
His announcement stands in quite the contrast to that of Thomas’ retirement; the Welshman essentially enjoyed a year-long farewell tour, saying goodbye to all of his favourite races, before hanging up his cleats on home soil. Yates has eschewed all fanfare, as he did throughout his career, and done it his own way.
The straight-talking, self-deprecating man from Bury has nonetheless ensured a place for himself in the history books and the pantheon of Britain’s all-time greats.
The numbers just in isolation are impressive: two grand tours, 11 grand tour stage wins, another podium finish at the Giro and a fourth place overall at the Tour de France. He won a world points race title on the track, the best young rider classification at the Tour in 2017, as well as Tirreno-Adriatico and four stages of Paris-Nice. He is only the second British rider to win multiple grand tours. He served a four-month doping ban in 2016 after testing positive for the banned substance terbutaline in an in-competition test during Paris–Nice, where he finished seventh. Though Orica-GreenEdge claimed full responsibility for the test result, stating that the team's doctor had failed to apply for a therapeutic use exemption for an asthma inhaler used by Yates.
But it’s the story of last year’s Giro that will live long in the memory, the Simon Yates redemption story. And fittingly, he leaves on his own terms. No frills, no nonsense.
His leaving letter concluded: “I step away from professional cycling with deep pride and a sense of peace.” Both are wholly deserved.
Category: General Sports
