Marcel Kittel retires.

ademort

The German sprinter has announced his retirement from the sport blaming a lack of motivation as the main reason.

ocdupalais

The Cav domination years: when guile, intuition and absolutely rinsing the @rse out of your genetic gifts and attention to technique won the spoils. When Kittel came along (and I think Cav has echoed this) it was as though that was it with sprinting: the new king had arrived. You might get one over him by being better positioned or better prepped by your DS, but such power seemed unbeatable. He didn’t even need to bother getting low, and that’s despite looking like a wardrobe on the back of a motorbike for the last 200m.
Good luck to him.

ddraver

I think we all knew this was coming and all of us wished him good luck.

Good man

orraloon

Indeed. Shame. But end of a chapter and all that. Hope he moves on and finds a new life. Top guy.

Matthewfalle

yup - shame. best wishes, etc.

lettingthedaysgoby

End of an era really. Wish him all the best.

mooro

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/marcel- ... l-cycling/

It’s quite a moving retirement statement and he appears a really honest genuine guy. In terms of motivation it’s a massive contrast to Phil Gs statement moving to new (old) team with a contract which will take him through to 40.

itboffin

I have a lot of respect for anyone who know's when enough is enough, very brave and sensible decision

gsk82

He hasn't been the same since the first stage of the first tdy. He had a thousand yard stare as he ground up bickley gate, barely an hour in.

Im glad he's taken the decision to retire, instead of avoiding making the difficult decision and trying to hang on.

andyp

I know it comes as no surprise, but it's still a tremendous loss to the sport to see one of the greatest sprinters of all time retire early.

I wish him well in his post-racing life.

specialgueststar

At 31 I can't help feeling there is some ex east German coach somewhere in grey sweats that could bring him back The film noir would be amazing!

If not another top tier sprinter who could make you jump up and celebrate

Pross

It feels like we're in an era where classic sprinters aren't winning as much. It probably isn't backed up by fact and might be more down to the lack of control by sprint teams whereas a few years back with Kittel, Greipel and Cav it felt like we were in a golden era but we never really saw all three battling it out unfortunately.

Lanterne_Rogue

There was a story told by Eric 'Winkle' Brown about the US Navy casually deciding to take the record for the number of carrier landings and assigning some poor bugger to do nothing but stick his plane down on carriers and take back off. This is notoriously one of the riskiest things in aviation, at one point having a 10% or so failure rate. In the words of Brown, "to his everlasting credit he got to 1,600 before he had a nervous breakdown. I can see his problem..."

It always struck me that Kittel had exactly the same issue with Cavendish because at one point it was clear that he was focused on chasing him down. On the 2017 Tour Kittel won five stages and still wasn't halfway to overtaking Cavendish's stage wins, and I think that's when it became clear to him quite how unlikely it was that he'd ever get there - and I don't think he's ever worked out what to do next.

It's a shame though - I've warmed to him in the last few years, and he was good company on ITV4 this year, and as much as everyone else seems to hate stages for the sprinters I'll maintain that there's little in cycling as thrilling as riders going handlebar to handlebar at sixty-odd kilometres per hour just millimetres from disaster. There's very few sprinters that have been quite like Kittel, and with the way cycling is going I'm not sure we'll see his like again.

Jammiedodgeruk

Pross wrote:

It feels like we're in an era where classic sprinters aren't winning as much. It probably isn't backed up by fact and might be more down to the lack of control by sprint teams whereas a few years back with Kittel, Greipel and Cav it felt like we were in a golden era but we never really saw all three battling it out unfortunately.

Maybe thats because Cav was already off the boil and not the sprinter that Kittel was by then, he was already past it.
Kittel is realising right now that its time to retire before he becomes a joke too.

Pross

Jammiedodgeruk wrote:

Pross wrote:

It feels like we're in an era where classic sprinters aren't winning as much. It probably isn't backed up by fact and might be more down to the lack of control by sprint teams whereas a few years back with Kittel, Greipel and Cav it felt like we were in a golden era but we never really saw all three battling it out unfortunately.

Maybe thats because Cav was already off the boil and not the sprinter that Kittel was by then, he was already past it.
Kittel is realising right now that its time to retire before he becomes a joke too.

Cavendish won 10 stages at the Tour after Kittel's 2012 debut, you really need to get over your issue and stop talking cr@p.

daniel_b

For those who have GCN+, I highly recommend watching the Kittel Interview by Bernie Eisel.

Lots of great background info, and just a really interesting indepth piece - well if you are into cycling at any rate, and maybe even if you are not.

P.S Switzerland looks like a very nice place to live.

ddraver

It is 😥

daniel_b

ddraver said:

It is 😥

I take it from that you used to live there?

Mad_Malx

Started reading the thread from the beginning thinking I’m sure he retired a while back....

Thanks for the heads up Dan