Former top-10 finisher at Vuelta, Carl Frederik Hagen retires with no interesting offers on the table for 2025
Cycling
We won't see Carl Frederik Hagen in the professional peloton again in 2025. The 33-year-old Norwegian is ending his cycling career after not managing to find an "ideal" team for next season.
"It feels a bit strange and sad, and it is with a mix of fear and joy that I write and announce this," Hagen begins his message on Instagram. "2024 will be my last year as a professional cyclist. After twelve years as a full-time professional, I still have a lot of love for the sport. I love the sport life and staying fit. I am not tired."
"But I have certain values that are very important to me. I always told myself that if I were to continue cycling, I would have to have a good gut feeling and believe that I was in a place with good and safe people around me, where I could develop as a rider and a person. With the offers I received, I did not find a match and I did not have the right feeling. That is why I choose to say goodbye to the professional peloton and start a completely unknown future."
The absolute highlight of Hagen's career, and the one result everyone will remember, was the Norwegian's 8th place at the Vuelta a Espana in his professional debut season in 2019. Since then, Hagen never quite lived up to the expectations after this result. Although he was able to comeback from tough 2020-21 seasons, Hagen only settled down as a consistent top-25 finisher in general classifications of races who occasionally sneaked into the top-10.
As mentioned before, Hagen made a debut among pros with Lotto Dstny in 2019, after which he rode for Israel - Premier Tech and finally at Q36.5 Pro Cycling where his career comes to a wrap.
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Ondrej ZhasilCycling Journalist
Ondřej Zhasil is a cycling journalist at CyclingUpToDate and has been part of the team since 2023. He is based in Ostrava, the third-largest city in the Czech Republic, and covers professional cycling across the main UCI competitions, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España. A key focus of his work is startlist analysis and pre-race coverage, where he examines team selections, rider line-ups, and tactical scenarios ahead of major events.
Alongside WorldTour coverage, Ondřej has developed specific expertise in junior cycling and in racing across East Asia, including competitions in China and Japan. He also maintains a broad working knowledge of other disciplines and levels, including cyclocross, while continuing to expand his understanding of mountain bike racing.
Ondřej holds a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Physics, which supports his analytical, data-driven approach to performance and race analysis. In his reporting, he regularly uses ProCyclingStats for results, statistics, and historical context. He places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles promptly when new, verified information becomes available.
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- how it is "We’ve taken another big step forward for next year" he just lost in lombardia to a 20 year old, and two 30+ year olds. and not even top 10 for WCRR.abstractengineer19-10-2026
- This is similar to Lebron. first he said i need to consult my family , my daughter, need respectable money blah blah blah and then dont care about family , dont care about money, only onion rings, am off to Philly, very very far from family. Off season should be with family more, no?abstractengineer19-10-2026
- I hope he comes back strong for a proper battle with Tadejmij19-10-2026
- congrats to a great career and good retirement.mij19-10-2026
- Any artificial product should be reported.Any team that doesn't should be stripped of wins and fined.I know that this level of transparency does not and will never exist.All anyone can do is continue to test riders on a regular and surprise basis.If the test comes back clean then all any of us can assume is the rider is clean.
Brucegel19-10-2026 - Also, it's supposed to be hard to gain an advantage from drafting off Remco because he is so aero.Hills3319-10-2026
- How would stats back it up? You realise tactics involved could mean Vine saved his legs for a faster finish? Some riders can choose to go all out and fade later in the ride, others can hold steady state the whole way, and others can have a reserved start and power up later in the ride. You can't judge just by the stats unless you have power data to be able to prove Vine is riding faster even though he is putting out the same or less power (suggesting drafting). I'm sure the stats prove that Vine didn't cheat because UCI would monitor the stats to make sure this exact scenario doesn't happen (and disqualify them for drafting if the stats proved it).Pogboom19-10-2026
- Only one person would say such a thing here. Sorry to burst your bubble but I’m afraid that window of opportunity has now closed. You can beat some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can’t beat all of the people all of the time.Jumpyjohn19-10-2026
- Both prizes are actually pathetic, almost amateur like, not even covering the cost of participatingJumpyjohn19-10-2026
- It depends on how you define doping and you would do well to give your definition so we can see how against it you are. If you consider the use (as a hypothetical example) of a new beneficial artificial product unknown to anti-doping agencies ok without considering asking them if it would constitute doping if you told them about it then we’re never going to agree on who could be or couldn’t be doping and according to what threshold, moral, statistical, legal, comparative. In football even financial doping is now consideredJumpyjohn19-10-2026
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