“Not being able to retire on my own terms is very painful” – Former Visma rider still struggling to accept enforced end to his career

The reality of retirement is still settling in for Amund Grondahl Jansen, with the former Team Visma | Lease a Bike rider admitting that the way his career ended continues to weigh heavily weeks after stepping away from the sport.

Sharing a reflective update on Instagram after competing in ski mountaineering event Pierra Menta, the Norwegian opened up on the emotional impact of a career that did not reach its natural conclusion.

“Not being able to retire on my own terms, but because of circumstances out of my control, is very painful,” he wrote, offering a stark contrast to the light-hearted tone of the post that first confirmed his retirement earlier this year.

That earlier message, accompanied by footage of him skiing in the mountains, had hinted at a new chapter. Now, the underlying reality has come into sharper focus.

Grondahl Jansen’s exit from the peloton followed a difficult final stretch that had already pointed towards an uncertain future. After returning to a Scandinavian setup with Uno-X Mobility for the 2025 season, his time with the team lasted just a single year before he was released at the end of October.

While no immediate retirement announcement followed at the time, the absence of a new contract and his subsequent social media post confirmed that his professional career had come to an end at the age of 31.

For much of that career, Grondahl Jansen operated in the service of others. After turning professional with LottoNL-Jumbo, later Team Visma | Lease a Bike, he became a trusted figure within one of the peloton’s most structured teams, forming part of sprint trains and supporting leaders including Primoz Roglic. He rode multiple editions of the Tour de France and contributed to the collective strength that defined the team’s rise.

His own opportunities were fewer, but not absent. In 2019, he claimed the Norwegian national road race title before backing it up days later with victory on stage three of the ZLM Tour. Those wins stand as the defining individual moments of a career otherwise built on reliability and team work.

The closing chapters, however, were shaped as much by setbacks as by results. His time with the Australian structure that became Team Jayco AlUla was heavily disrupted by recurring health issues, including femoral artery problems that required multiple operations and limited his continuity in racing.

Those circumstances ultimately fed into an ending that, by his own admission, was not his to control.

“There is no doubt this race, with my friend Rusty Woods, was the best psychologist I could have found,” he added, reflecting on his participation at Pierra Menta, where he has already begun to channel his competitive instincts into a new discipline. “Now it is time to transition into life after (professional) sport.”

It is a shift that appears to be underway physically, but, as his words suggest, one that is still being processed mentally. For a rider whose career was defined by commitment to team goals and resilience through adversity, the hardest part has not been stepping away, but accepting how that moment arrived.