2016 to be Fabian Cancellara’s final season: reports

As announced earlier this week, 2016 will be the last season for Fabian Cancellara. The 34-year-old rider dropped the news at the Swiss cycling awards.

Such a revelation may not come as a shock to observers of Cancellara’s 2015 season, however. Through much of the past year, the accomplished cyclist has been beset by illness and injury, missing out on the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, for example, after sustaining a broken vertebrae at the E3 Harelbeke. Misfortune struck next at the Tour de France, when Cancellara again crashed out and fracture the same vertebrae — a heartbreaker of an accident that cost him the yellow jersey.

Cancellara also bowed out of the start list at the Richmond, Virginia UCI World Championships, after withdrawing from the Vuelta due to illness. 2015, it goes without saying, was not the best year for the Swiss rider.

Speaking to Swiss news outlet SRF at the Swiss cycling awards gala, Cancellara reportedly said, “2016 will be my last season. It is the right time. Now I’m ready for something else. Cycling is not my whole life; cycling is just a part of my life.”

The storied athlete’s retirement brings a close to a fifteen-year career that started in 2001, when Cancellara first rolled out as a pro rider with now-defunct Italian team Mapei. A string of other jerseys followed, with Cancellara counting himself among the ranks of Fassa Bortolo, CSC and Saxo Bank. Eventually, his career arc took him to Leopard Trek, which merged with RadioShack to become Trek Factory Racing.

Throughout those years, he piled up an impressive list of achievements, including seven monument victories and 12 monument podium appearances. He claimed the leader’s jersey at the Tour de France 29 times and won eight stages, took three stages at the Vuelta, and was the overall victor at the Tour of Oman, Danmark Rundt, Tirreno-Adriatico and the Tour de Suisse.

When his final season in 2016 rolls to a finish, that list might be a bit longer.