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Emma Pooley announces her retirement

Sunday in Glasgow will see final race of former world TT champion and Olympic silver medallist

Emma Pooley has announced that she will retire from cycling after competing for England in the Commonwealth Games road race in Glasgow on Sunday.

The 31-year-old, who completed her PhD on geotechnical engineering last year, broke the news of her retirement in an interview with Sarah Connolly for Rouleur.

She said: "I want to go out properly, when I've planned it and have no regrets.

"I've been mulling it over, and came to the conclusion that the Commonwealth Games is the perfect opportunity."

The former world time trial champion and silver medallist at the 2008 Beijing Olympics took a break from cycling last year to focus on her studies.

She returned this season with Lotto-Belisol, scoring victories including the British national time trial championship and three stages of the Giro Rosa earlier this month.

"After the first Giro stage win, there was a little bit of me that thought about carrying on until Rio 2016, but the decision was made.

"Maybe I had a good Giro because the weight was off my shoulders. Maybe it was the last-chance saloon," she added.

Pooley sits on the UCI’s Women's Commission, and was one of the leading cyclists who lobbied for La Course, the women’s race preceding the Tour de France finale in Paris, which had its inaugural edition last Sunday.

British Cycling president, Bob Howden said: "Emma has been a tremendous ambassador for cycling both on and off the bike and for women's sport in general, never far from the action wherever she applied her undoubted talents.

"At British Cycling she will be long remembered as a rider who gave her all for her team and she retires with the thanks and best wishes of British Cycling and our members.”

Pooley now plans to focus her athletic talents on triathlons running events such as marathons– sports in which she has already enjoyed some success and which she noted earlier this year had brought her more prize money than she ever received in cycling.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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Abbie | 9 years ago
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NO, I'm sad. She's been really inspirational to me. Love watching her race, she's a real gutsy rider. Relatively new (in the last few years) to riding a road bike and watching road racing. And sadly not enough womens racing is televised. But she really stands out from the field with her style, and would be really sad not to see her race again. Emma don't retire, Please!

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VeloPeo | 9 years ago
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Had the privilege of meeting her recently and she's one of the nicest people you'll ever meet.

Hopefully she'll continue with her work on UCI committees as they desperately need the insight from people like her and Helen Wyman to push women's cycling forward.

A massive loss to the peloton but an understandable decision. Chapeau on a fabulous cycling career Emma.

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workhard | 9 years ago
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Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Big fan of Pooley's.

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Simon E | 9 years ago
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Sad for me (a big fan) and for cycle sport - we lose the best climber of the women's peloton, and a top time triallist too; how often does that combination happen?

Interviewed by Sarah Connolly for Rouleur:
http://rouleur.cc/journal/riders/emma-pooley-keep-running

Sarah runs a great women's racing site, the audio interview with Emma (and more ) here:
http://prowomenscycling.com/2014/07/29/podcast-2014-exclusive-special-fe...

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VeloPeo replied to Simon E | 9 years ago
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Simon E wrote:

Sarah runs a great women's racing site, the audio interview with Emma (and more ) here:
http://prowomenscycling.com/2014/07/29/podcast-2014-exclusive-special-fe...

As Simon said (sorry!), Sarah's work on women's cycling is great (how about a few guest columns Road.cc....) and it was actually her that introduced me to Emma.

Follow her on Twitter - @_pigeons_ - although be warned she's mad as a box of frogs  1

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kitkat | 9 years ago
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This is a good move for Emma, looking forward to seeing her progress on the Tri scene.

Interestingly SlowTwitch had an article on how poorly paid IronMan races were, that says something about cycling!
http://www.slowtwitch.com/News/What_happens_in_Lake_Placid..._4488.html

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