END OF A CYCLE
Martin: I knew it was time to quit as my passion began to feel like a chore
DAN MARTIN has revealed why he retired just a year after achieving his best ever finish in a Grand Tour.
Martin had just turned 34 when he called time on his cycling career in September 2021.
He had finished fourth in La Vuelta in 2020 and, in his final year as a pro, came 10th in the Giro d’italia and seventh in the Tour of Britain.
Still, the time had come for the two-time Tour de France stage winner, who is Nicolas
Roche’s (inset) cousin and
Stephen Roche’s nephew.
Martin admitted: “The reason I stopped when I did was because I felt that love of cycling was starting to split.
“It was becoming a chore and I never wanted that.
“I wanted to quit while it was still fun and I could still be passionate about the sport that’s been my life and been my passion since I don’t know how old. That was important to me.
“The natural competitor in me sits at home and thinks, ‘Ah, I’d be in the front now’.
“And you always have those questions, ‘How good are they now, would I still be up there, how good could I be?’. That’s especially when you see peers I was beating doing well.
“You think, ‘I could still be there’. “But the cost to myself and my life was becoming unsustainable.
“It just came to the point I felt like I was missing out on other things in my life, my kids growing up.
“I could have continued and maybe got results here and there but that wasn’t in my personality. I was either going to be all in or out.
“The year just before I retired was probably one of the most successful of my career, fourth in the Vuelta.
“But to get to that level, mentally, it was so difficult to make those sacrifices day after day, to the point I was never actually leaving home unless it was on a bike.”