Paris, Sept 4 (AFP\/APP):Irish rider Dan Martin, who has won stages on all three of cycling’s Grand Tours, announced on Saturday he would retire at the end of 2021 after 14 years as a professional.<\/p>\n
Martin was the first major signing for Israel Cycling Academy and won a stage on the Giro d’Italia in May to add to two victories on both the Tour de France and the Vuelta a Espana.<\/p>\n
He also won two of cycling’s monuments — Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Il Lombardia.<\/p>\n
Martin released a lengthy statement on Twitter explaining why he has decided to retire.<\/p>\n
“I will always be a cyclist, I won’t hang up my bike, just my racing number,” said the father of two-year-old twins who is married to British distance runner Jess Martin.<\/p>\n
“I’m also looking forwards to being more present as a father and doing the simple things that are incompatible with professional cycling, like going for a run with my wife.”<\/p>\n
The 35-year-old Martin is a nephew of Irish cycling great Stephen Roche who won the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and world championships in 1987.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Paris, Sept 4 (AFP\/APP):Irish rider Dan Martin, who has won stages on all three of cycling’s Grand Tours, announced on Saturday he would retire at the end of 2021 after 14 years as a professional. Martin was the first major signing for Israel Cycling Academy […]<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":17436,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[10553],"class_list":["post-17435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-sports-news","tag-irish-cyclist-dan-martin-announces-retirement"],"yoast_head":"\n