Tom Dumoulin recalls how things changed for the worse following his Giro d'Italia win: "After that I never managed to go to a Grand Tour with a relaxed feeling"

Tom Dumoulin brought an end to his cycling career in August of 2022. Speaking on the Mark Tuitert Drive Podcast, Dumoulin has now gone into depths about how his life changed for the worse after his Giro d'Italia victory.

"I didn't come to that Giro to win it," Dumoulin reveals to former long track skater Mark Tuitert. “I also thought that the podium would be too ambitious. I had the top ten in mind. That seemed like a good goal for my first Giro d'Italia. If I had finished sixth, I would have been very happy too. In the end I turned out to be much better than the team and I had expected. The first two weeks of the round were relatively easy. With one week to go I was two and a half minutes ahead of number two. But in that last week I really had to pull myself apart."

But with that career highlight came the added pressure and demands that come with being a Grand Tour winner and pre-race favourite for almost all races in which he took to the startline. "After a few days I lost the leader's jersey again, but luckily I was able to regain it in the final time trial. The final victory changed my life," he explains. "I wouldn't have wanted to miss it for the world, but it did increase the pressure on me. And the team went along with it. After that I never managed to go to a Grand Tour with a relaxed feeling."

Ultimately Dumoulin could never come to grips with the added pressure, losing his enjoyment of the sport and bringing an early end to his career. "Cycling just didn't make me happy anymore. I no longer wanted to fool myself," he says. "Training seven hours a day was no longer an option for me. Quitting has provided a liberation. I don't look back on it with bad feelings."