Former cycling world champion Lizzie Deignan to retire at the end of next season

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FILE - Britain’s Elizabeth “Lizzie” Deignan celebrates on the podium winning La Course by Le Tour de France women’s cycling race, in Nice, southern France, Aug. 29, 2020. (Christophe Petit-Tesson/Pool photo via AP, File)

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FILE - Britain’s Elizabeth “Lizzie” Deignan, of the Trek-Segafredo team, celebrates as she crosses the finish line to win the Belgian women cycling classic and UCI World Tour race Liege Bastogne Liege, in Liege, Oct. 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Olivier Matthys, File)

LONDON (AP) — British cyclist Lizzie Deignan, a former world champion and the only woman to win the ‘triple crown’ of monuments, will retire at the end of next season.

Deignan was the first British athlete to win a medal on home soil at the 2012 London Olympics, earning silver in the women’s road race. She competed in her fourth Olympics in Paris this year and was 12th in the road race.

Her Lidl-Trek team said in a statement on Friday she agreed on a one-year contract extension and will put an end to her almost two-decades-long career at the end of the 2025 season.

The 35-year-old Deignan was successful on the track first then morphed into a one-day race specialist. She won the rainbow jersey at the 2015 world championships, one of her many professional road victories at the biggest races.

She’s won all three women’s monuments: The Tour of Flanders in 2016, Liege-Bastogne-Liege in 2020, and the inaugural Paris-Roubaix Femmes in 2021.

“Often people say, ‘Retire on the top.’ But I have no ego or necessity to retire at the top. I’m really happy to go full circle and be somebody that helps other people win bike races again,” she said.

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Deignan put her career on pause in 2018 when she had her first child, and planned to retire earlier but was convinced to carry on by her team.

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“The reason I initially wanted to retire was because I no longer have the motivation for my own results,” she said. “They spoke to me and offered me a contract in the vein of being a road captain and somebody that can mentor the younger riders coming through. That kind of sparked a bit of motivation in me and I thought, yeah, actually that’s something that I am really motivated by. I really enjoy bringing out the best in the people around me. I still love cycling.”

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