Jack Bobridge retires at 27 due to rheumatoid arthritis

Australia’s current national road race champion, Jack Bobridge, has been forced to retire from cycling at the age of 27 due to rheumatoid arthritis.

Bobridge, who five years ago broke Chris Boardman’s 4km individual pursuit record that had long been considered ‘unbreakable’ – the Briton set it in 1996 in the now banned ‘Superman’ position – was diagnosed with the condition in 2011.

> Bobridge smashes Boardman's 'unbreakable' 4km individual pursuit record

He left his trade team, Trek Segafredo, in September due to family reasons and said he had suffered from fatigue since helping Australia to Olympic silver behind Team GB in the team pursuit at Rio, just as he had done in London four years earlier.

Bobridge told the Adelaide Advertiser: “Since the Games and backing off the training and racing load I’ve found my arthritis has been 100 per cent better and I’ve been able to get off all meds as well.

“I’m still on the bike three times a week but in terms of the arthritis it’s been way less stressful on the joints and body.

“I chose to come back to Australia last year to concentrate on the track, and when I went back into the WorldTour this year it was one last stab at it,” he went on.

“I don’t really care what anyone else thinks I could have done or what I’ve done, I only went back to Europe this year to finalise things in my own head and I found it wasn’t enjoyable with the arthritis and the pain.

“The stuff you have to go through in the Grand Tours and racing, it’s just not fun.

“There’s pain in my feet, hands and my back. When you get the flare ups your body is fighting it and a Grand Tour is hard enough as it is.”

Bobridge, who has set up a gym and cycling fitness centre in Perth, Western Australia, has a two-year-old daughter and said that while he “could drag on for three or four years but come 40 or 50 the damage it’s going to do and the arthritis in my body ... I don’t see sport is worth it.

“I’ve had a good career, I’ve got good results and done Comm Games, Olympics and worlds, road and track, I’ve lived a good life in Europe and to me the decision is pretty easy, and since I made it I haven’t thought twice about it,” he added.

The Adeliade-born rider has ridden for four WorldTour teams – Garmin-Sharp, Orica-GreenEdge, Belkin Pro Cycling and Trek-Segafredo – and has won stages at the Eneco Tour and Tour Down Under, as well as twice becoming national road champion. He was also under-23 world time trial champion in 2009.

On the track, besides those Olympic silver medals, Bobridge has won three rainbow jerseys and four Commonwealth Games gold medals, in the individual and team pursuits at Delhi in 2010 and in Glasgow two years ago.

Last year, he had an unsuccessful tilt at the UCI Hour Record, and said afterwards: ""I think it was the closest I could feel to death without actually dying."

> Bobridge explains the agony of an Hour Record attempt