Former world champion Lizzie Deignan has retired from professional cycling with immediate effect, after announcing that she is expecting her third child with husband and former pro Phil Deignan.
The 36-year-old, a pioneering figure when it comes to motherhood in pro cycling, had previously said at the end of last year that the 2025 season would be her last in the peloton. However, with the news that her third child is due in February 2026, Deignan has now brought her retirement forward.
After turning pro with Team Halfords Bikehut in 2008, Deignan took 43 professional victories during a glittering career, including the 2015 world road race championships, the Tour of Flanders, Strade Bianche, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Trofeo Alfredo Binda, two editions of the Women’s Tour of Britain, La Course by Le Tour, and the inaugural edition of Paris-Roubaix Femmes in 2021, her final individual win.
After a promising start to her career, which included three consecutive stage victories at the 2010 Tour Cycliste Féminin International de l’Ardèche, Deignan announced herself as one of the world’s leading riders at the 2012 Olympic road race in London, where she finished second to Marianne Vos.
In 2015, she secured arguably the biggest win of her career, outsprinting Anna van der Breggen in Richmond, before following that up with a sensational, world-beating spring in 2016, when she established herself as the best rider in the peloton.
In the rainbow jersey, Deignan was on fire in the classics, winning Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Strade Bianche, Trofeo Alfredo Binda, and the Tour of Flanders, before winning a stage and the overall at the Women’s Tour.
However, her 2016 was to end in controversy and acrimony, after the news broke that she had been provisionally suspended after missing three doping tests within a year and was facing a four-year ban.
However, after arguing that the first whereabouts failure was the fault of the anti-doping authorities, and not herself, the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) cleared her to compete at the Rio Olympics, where she had been heavily tipped but ended up finishing fifth.
Deignan then become a trailblazer within the sport, after returning following the birth of daughter Orla in 2018, going on to win the Women’s Tour the next season and Liège-Bastogne-Liège and La Course in 2020, the year she topped the Women’s WorldTour rankings.
And the following autumn, she secured arguably her most memorable victory, winning the first ever edition of Paris-Roubaix Femmes with a stunning, iconic long-range solo attack in grisly conditions.
She also missed the 2022 season due to the arrival of son Shea, but came back to the sport once again with Lidl-Trek, where she transitioned into a new role as a domestique and road captain, sharing her experience with the squad’s younger riders.
After one final victory, shared with her teammates in the opening team time trial of the Vuelta a España – indicative of her new approach to the sport – Deignan raced on home roads for the final time at the Tour of Britain, before riding the Copenhagen Sprint just over a month ago, for what turned out to be her final outing as a pro bike racer.
In a statement issued by Lidl-Trek, the team described Deignan as “a consummate leader and mentor amongst an immensely talented roster of women” who “has also helped lead the charge for more exposure on women’s cycling and better compensation for her colleagues”.
“She became one of the first athletes in the sport to show that motherhood and racing are not mutually exclusive… This remarkable feat served as an inspiration to her fellow competitors, and to even more women outside of the sport.”
“I have this life outside of cycling that gives me so much fulfilment and so much love,” Deignan said today, announcing her pregnancy and retirement.
“I’m proud of every sponsor that I’ve ever been associated with. I think that’s something that not every athlete can say, but I really represented sponsors that I feel proud to have represented.
“Cycling is totally underestimated as a team sport, right? I grew up in cycling and I’ve seen this massive shift that I’m so proud to be a part of, but the basics are the same. You start as a domestique, you work your way up, you become a leader.
“Often people say, ‘Retire on the top.’ But I have no ego or necessity to retire at the top. I’m really happy to go full circle and to have ended my career as somebody that helps other people win bike races again.”
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2 thoughts on ““I’ve no ego to retire at the top. I’m happy to go full circle”: Lizzie Deignan retires immediately from professional cycling after announcing third pregnancy”
Even more glad I finally
Even more glad I finally caught up with Lizzie at the end of the Tour of Britain in Glasgow. I told her I was happy to wait till she’d had time to compose herself as she was in floods of tears at the time and she graciously posed when she was ready.
A great career and legacy, and no doubt an inspiration to the likes of Cat Ferguson and the stars of the future. Chapeau!
A fabulous competitor and
A fabulous competitor and fine example to future generations.