“It’s tough. Especially the older they get and they start to miss you" - Geraint Thomas, Toms Skujins and Wout Poels on struggles of balancing career and fatherhood

Life as a professional cyclist can be extremely rewarding on occasion, but equally, the vast amount of time spent away from the family, both racing and in preparation for races can be a struggle.

“It’s tough. Especially the older they get and they start to miss you, and you miss out on things that they’re doing back home,” INEOS Grenadiers' Geraint Thomas told GCN at the most recent Vuelta a Espana. “The racing bit isn’t the worst, it’s just more the time away for training camps and everything. Obviously, if a race doesn’t go quite so well, like these three weeks, it does get even tougher because it’s kind of like ‘what was the point of all that’, missing everything for basically sod all."

It's not just Thomas either that admits to struggles, although for Lidl-Trek's Toms Skujins, he and partner Abby Mickey have to balance both their careers in cycling alongside the care of their child. “This year Abby went to the women’s Tour, which is obviously a week after the men’s Tour de France and the week going into San Sebastián,” he explained. “It’s always a race I want to do well at, it’s a super nice race in a cool area, and the whole experience is always quite fun. But Abby was gone, and I was solo parenting."

“There were days where I would get ready with our daughter at seven in the morning, drop her off at daycare at eight, get changed in the parking lot, go ride, get changed in the parking lot to pick her up again and come back home," Skujins recalls. "And it would just be the two of us, I wouldn’t shower until she went to bed, I’d try to feed the both of us, and the whole day was just trying to get long training in, and still make sure at the same time I’m there for my daughter. I don’t think many pros prep for a race like that.”

Unlike their female counterparts, under current UCI rules new fathers aren't given the right to paternity leave when their child is born. Given the delicate nature of professional sports and the fact that performances mean everything when it comes to getting a contract, which is arguably as important as ever following the birth of a child, most riders are therefore forced into a difficult situation.

“That’s the difficult thing in professional sport. If you don’t perform, you’re out,” adds Wout Poels. “If you sign a three-year contract and a baby is coming and you want to stay five weeks at home without racing… I don’t know. I think even if I had the option to stay at home, I think I wouldn’t have done it, because I like to race and have my career, so it’s personal for everyone."