Lizzie Deignan to bow out in 2025: ‘I showed you can be a professional athlete and a mum’

  • British cyclist confirms retirement after 18th season
  • Deignan plans to continue to work in the sport

Lizzie Deignan, the London 2012 silver medallist and former world road race champion, has confirmed that 2025 will be her final year in the women’s peloton.

“Next year will be my final season,” said Deignan, who has moved back to her native Yorkshire after a long period based in Monaco. “It’s been a question that’s been asked of me, over and over, the last couple of years – ‘When are you going to retire?’ – and I have been thinking about it.”

Continue reading...

Mark Cavendish signs off with emotional win in final race as pro cyclist

  • British rider delivers victory in Singapore Criterium
  • ‘I couldn’t have wished for a better send-off than here’

Mark Cavendish claimed victory in his final race as a professional cyclist. The 39-year-old produced a trademark sprint finish to cross the line first in the Tour de France Prudential Singapore Criterium.

Cavendish’s fellow competitors gave him a guard of honour before the race and the Manxman was understandably emotional at the end.

Continue reading...

Mark Cavendish confirms that Sunday will be ‘final race of my cycling career’

  • Briton’s last race is Tour de France Criterium in Singapore
  • ‘I have achieved everything that I can on the bike’

Mark Cavendish has confirmed he will retire on Sundaytoday, ending a career that includes the all-time record for most stage victories at the Tour de France and four world titles on the track and road.

The 39-year-old, who announced his retirement last May before reversing that decision five months later, revealed his decision with a post on Instagram, which showed his greatest victories before ending with a simple message: “My racing career … completed it.”

Continue reading...

Cyclist Rohan Dennis negotiating with prosecutors after allegedly causing wife’s death with car

Former world champion appears in Adelaide court 10 months after partner, a fellow worlds winner and Olympian, died outside their family home

The former world champion cyclist Rohan Dennis has delayed pleading to charges over the death of his wife, fellow Olympian Melissa Hoskins, so negotiations with prosecutors can continue.

Dennis, 34, was arrested after Hoskins, 32, was struck by his vehicle in front of their home at Medindie in Adelaide’s inner north on 30 December last year.

Continue reading...

Mont Ventoux returns for 2025 Tour de France with Pogacar aiming for No 4

  • Race begins in Lille on 5 July and returns to Paris finale
  • Tour de France Femmes begins in Brittany on 26 July

Mountains, crosswinds, cobbles and time trials: none of the hazards of the 2025 Tour de France route, unveiled in Paris on Tuesday, are likely to derail the seemingly unstoppable Tadej Pogacar, winner of almost every race worth winning in 2024.

Next summer the Slovenian – once a cheeky prodigy but now a ruthless terminator – will be back at the Tour’s Grand Départ, for a race that starts in Lille on 5 July and returns to the traditional finale, after a one-year absence because of the Paris Olympics, on the Champs-Élysées in the capital on 27 July.

Continue reading...

Chris Hoy: a remarkable, determined human being unchanged by success | William Fotheringham

The courage with which he faces his diagnosis is typical of a man who engages with life in his own way, with perspective

At a certain age, joked Sir Chris Hoy in October 2011, you don’t even buy green bananas. The throwaway remark was intended to underline the complexities and unpredictabilities of being a “senior” athlete – Hoy was then 35, seemingly blessed with eternal youth – but it seems grimly apposite in the light of the Scot’s announcement that he has terminal cancer and may have only between two and four years to live.

There has been universal warmth and admiration for the way Hoy has dealt with his diagnosis, revealed publicly in an interview with the Sunday Times. An upcoming memoir, All That Matters, will go into further detail, along with relating the multiple sclerosis diagnosis of Hoy’s wife, Sarra. The unflinching courage shown by Hoy, the acknowledgment of the tremendous difficulty of processing and communicating what has happened to their family, underlines that here is a remarkable human being, who engages with life – and death – in his own way, with a humbling degree of perspective.

Continue reading...

‘Very special’: Archibald makes golden return at Cycling World Championships

  • Rider helps Great Britain defend team pursuit title
  • Archibald missed Paris Olympics with serious leg injuries

Katie Archibald struck gold on her return from serious leg injuries as Great Britain successfully defended the women’s team pursuit title at the Cycling World Championships in Denmark.

Archibald’s hopes of more Olympic success in Paris were dashed when she suffered a fractured tibia and fibula, dislocated ankle and ligament damage in a freak accident when stumbling over a step in her garden in June.

Continue reading...

Katie Archibald: ‘My job satisfaction is a 10. The rest of my life is definitely not’

Katie Archibald, who returns to racing for GB at the worlds in Denmark, is eyeing the LA Olympics despite being upended by the death of her partner and a horrific injury

Katie Archibald reflects on the differences between sport, life and death with such moving insight that I have to look away. So much raw ­feeling is etched into her face, as her eyes fill with tears, that it seems intrusive to just sit and see such pain. I touch her arm lightly in attempted reassurance and then try to turn ­discreetly to the gleaming pine track where the GB men’s team pursuit squad race past at blurring speed.

The soft hiss of their bikes makes an eerie sound at the Manchester Velodrome as they prepare for the track world championships, which begin in Ballerup, Denmark on Wednesday. Archibald, a five-time world champion who won gold at the Rio and Tokyo Olympics, will compete in the women’s team pursuit and Madison. Even being on the track will be an incredible achievement.

Continue reading...

The Ineos Effect: hit and miss as Jim Ratcliffe’s tentacles have gone global

Ratcliffe has built an empire of assets across different sports but his teams have enjoyed varying degrees of success

Should Sir Ben Ainslie’s crew achieve the seemingly impossible and bring home the America’s Cup it will be the biggest sporting triumph yet for Ineos, whose tentacles now lie across the elite landscape in six disciplines. Despite heavy investment and the oversight of Sir Dave Brailsford it has been a mixed bag so far for Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s petrochemicals company; they have struggled to make their mark in Formula One and cycling, while it may take a superhuman effort to restore Manchester United to greatness.

They have encountered accusations of using sport to airbrush environmental concerns around their business. Ending Britain’s 136-year wait for sailing’s most vaunted prize would, in the short term at least, guarantee favourable headlines.

Continue reading...