“It’s not easy to end your career in China, far away from your family" - Zdenek Stybar reveals Tour of Guangxi is likely to be his final road race

Now 37 years old, Zdenek Stybar has the end of his career in sight and after previously expressing concerns over the likelihood of securing a contract for 2024, the Czech believes the ongoing Tour of Guangxi could bring his road career to an end.

“It’s not easy to end your career in China, far away from your family,” the former Vuelta a Espana and Tour de France stage winner told Cyclingnews in Beihai on Friday. “But on the other hand, I’m trying not to think too much about it. I’m just racing here and I’m doing what I have to do. I would still like to do some cyclo-cross races this winter, but on the road, I think that’s it.”

As well as winning Grand Tour stages, Stybar also excelled in the Classics in his pomp, twice finishing runner-up at Paris-Roubaix. His 2023 season however was curtailed by surgery to his iliac artery. “The Spring season was as bad as it could be, but at least I knew the reason why afterwards. I think I had the problem with the iliac arteries progressively over the last three years because that’s also when my performance started to go down step by step,” Štybar said.

“I didn’t know why that was happening, because it’s not that I was not motivated or something. Now at least I know why. For the last year, I was basically racing on one leg. Afterwards you think to yourself, ‘Why didn’t we check for that before?’ But the thing is, I always had some problem in that period. I had the heart operation and then I had COVID four times, so there was always some explanation for why I wasn’t in top shape, and there were still some good races in between, moments where I thought the shape was coming.”

“Unfortunately, I didn’t re-sign as there is no place on our team,” Štybar said. “And then with the situation of the past weeks with such uncertainty about teams, I think this is probably my last race. Of course, my manager was still speaking to teams, but after all those surgeries, after my performances and my age, nobody is really interested.”