Tony Martin ends career with gold medal at cycling world championships
Veteran Tony Martin ended his muchdecorated career in style as Germany won the mixed relay race at the cycling world championships.
The 36-year-old Martin is a fourtime time trial world champion and has also won five Tour de France stages.
The men’s teams started from the seaside North Sea resort of Knokkeheist and completed a 22.5-kilometre course to Brugge, where their female teammates took over for a 22-kilometre loop around the picturesque city.
Martin and his five team-mates — Lisa Brennauer, Lisa Klein, Mieke Kroeger, Nikias Arndt and Maximilian Richard Walscheid — finished 12.79 seconds faster than the Dutch team that included world champion Ellen van Dijk and Olympic champion Annemiek van Vleuten.
Martin had one year remaining on his contract with Jumbo-visma but decided after this year’s Tour de France that he would not continue. Martin crashed out of the three-week event in July during Stage 11, when he had to be taken away in an ambulance.