Elizabeth Deignan will retire from professional cycling after 2025. The 35-year-old Briton had an expiring contract with Lidl-Trek, but the two parties have extended the contract for one more year. After next season, Deignan will say goodbye to the peloton after a splendid career which includes many victories as well as Olympic silver from London 2012.
"I will end my career next year, at the end of 2025," Deignan says in a video on Lidl-Trek’s social media. She emotionally explains that she finds it difficult to leave her children to go racing. "I just don’t want to say goodbye to them anymore. I also don’t feel the need and ego to stop at the top. I just want to close the circle and be someone who helps others win races. If I can help the next champions of the sport, I’m happy to be part of that."
In her eighteen years as a professional, Deignan has won 43 professional races to date. Her greatest success came in 2015, when she became world champion in Richmond. But she has had more highlights.
She won the Tour of Flanders and Strade Bianche wearing the rainbow stripes, Liège–Bastogne–Liège in 2020 and became the first women's champion at Paris–Roubaix in 2021. She's also taken the GC of La Course during the covid season, the predecessor of the current Tour de France Femmes. Deignan was also the best at the Trofeo Alfredo Binda twice and at the GP de Plouay three times.
Lizzie Deignan 🤝 2025
— Lidl-Trek (@LidlTrek) November 15, 2024
The British cycling icon 👑 & women’s peloton trailblazer will conclude an exceptional career after final contract extension with Lidl-Trek. pic.twitter.com/M8oB9TXYpd