Former Giro winner puts career on hold
Former Giro d’italia champion Tom Dumoulin has put his cycling career on hold, questioning whether he wants to continue in the sport as he abruptly left Team Jumbo-visma’s pre-season training camp.
On Friday the Dutch team had said Dumoulin would be given a leadership role at this summer’s Tour de France alongside Primoz Roglic, but a day later the 30-yearold announced he would take an indefinite period out to consider his future. “I took the decision yesterday,” Dumoulin said in a statement released by the team. “And the team supports me in it, and it feels really good. It is really as if a backpack of a hundred kilos has slipped off my shoulders. I immediately woke up happy.
“I have been feeling for quite a while that it is very difficult for me to know how to find my way as Tom Dumoulin the cyclist – with the pressure that comes with it, with the expectations of different parties. “I want to do well for everyone, but because of that I have forgotten myself a bit in the past year. What do I want? Do I still want to be a rider? And how?” Dumoulin won the Giro in 2017, following it up with second places at both the Giro and the Tour de France a year later. He moved to Jumbo-visma in 2020 after his final season with Team Sunweb was wrecked by injuries. He rode last year’s Tour in a support role – with his stunned expression as team-mate Roglic surrendered the lead in the penultimate time trial among the defining images of the race.
Roglic has not attended the team’s Spanish training camp after coming into close contact with a coronavirus case.