Tom Dumoulin to retire at the end of the season

2017 Giro d’Italia champion Tom Dumoulin announced on Friday that he will retire from racing at the end of the season. The 31-year-old Dutchman recently abandoned the Giro on Stage 14.

At the beginning of last season, soon after announcing his schedule, Dumoulin stepped away from the sport for several months, saying, “I have been feeling for quite a while that it is very difficult for me to know how to find my way as Tom Dumoulin the cyclist.” At that point the Butterfly of Maastrict had been on the mend from a knee injury suffered in the 2019 Giro d’Italia. He didn’t race past June 14 that year and didn’t get any 2020 racing in before the COVID-19 recess.

On Friday, Dumoulin said in a statement on Facebook, “Many times, and especially this year, it has been a frustrating path, at which my body felt tired, and still feels tired. As soon as the load in training or races gets higher, I suffer from fatigue, aches and injuries instead of improving.”

Later on in May, Dumoulin said he would come back to race the Tour de Suisse. He delighted his fans by earning silver in the Tokyo Olympic Games time trial, finishing 1:01 back of winner Primož Roglič, his Jumbo-Visma teammate.

Besides winning the 2017 Giro, he was runner-up the next year to Chris Froome and runner-up to Geraint Thomas in the Tour de France the same year. He has four Giro stages, three Tour stages and two Vuelta a España stages on his palmares. In 2017 he was world chrono champion.

Right now, it’s unclear whether or not he’ll support Roglič at the Tour de France or the Vuelta a España. He is slated to race Il Lombardia in October and said in his Facebook statement that he plans on racing September’s World Championship time trial in Australia.