Ellen van Dijk to retire at the end of 2025 season
After 20 seasons as a professional, the Dutchwoman has announced that she will hang up her wheels at the end of this year.
Ellen van Dijk has announced that she will retire at the end of this season, bringing the curtain down on a career that saw her win three time trial world titles and the Tour of Flanders.
The 38-year-old revealed the news on NOS television’s De Avondetappe show on Tuesday evening.
“I see riders in the peloton now who are 19 years young, and that makes me twice as old,” Van Dijk said. “A whole new generation has emerged. Of my generation, the only ones left are Marianne Vos and Anna van der Breggen. Last year, I had decided to continue for one more year and then stop.”
Van Dijk began her final season with victory at the Vuelta a Extremadura Femenina and she later took second place at Amstel Gold Race and wore the red jersey after the opening day of the Vuelta España Femenina.
Crashes at the Ronde van Lekkerkerk and Baloise Ladies Tour would prevent her from lining out for Lidl-Trek at the Tour de France Femmes. “The team doctor was decisive and decided we weren't going to take that risk,” said Van Dijk.
In a statement issued by Lidl-Trek on Wednesday morning, Van Dijk indicated that the recent series of crashes had played a part in confirming her decision to end her career after this season.
“I was waiting for finally one moment where I knew it was enough, and it came,” Van Dijk said. “I had a good spring this year, so when that was going well I didn’t feel retirement calling, but I’ve had some nasty crashes in the past two years and after the spring this year I broke my shoulder and in my first race coming back from that, the Baloise Tour, I was involved in a hard crash in the middle of the peloton.
“At that moment, I realised that I don’t want this anymore. We started the next day in the rain, and I thought ‘no’, this is not where I feel at home anymore. For me that was the moment where I knew I was done with racing in the peloton.”
Van Dijk won 70 races as a professional, including some 41 time trials. She was world time trial champion in Florence in 2013 and she added two more rainbow jerseys in the discipline in Flanders in 2021 and Wollongong in 2022.
She was European time trial champion four times in a row between 2016 and 2019, and she added the European road title in 2021. She also won the Tour of Flanders in 2014 with a memorable solo effort.
Van Dijk paused her racing career in 2023 for the birth of her son Faas, but she returned and made an immediate impact with two time trial wins.
“I’m proud of the last two years where as a family we really had to be a team to get the best out of me, and I’m proud of how my partner Benjamin managed that with Faas,” Van Dijk said. “It’s been super special to experience these past two years as a family and all the memories I have from that are super special and I will treasure them for sure.
“I don’t know if I look forward to my retirement. I don’t know yet what I’m going to do, but in general I feel very thankful for everything in my career and I would like to make that message very clear.”
