The word ‘retirement’ is a sensitive concept for a professional athlete. As a younger man, I once enraged an ageing professional cyclist so much just by mentioning the word that I had to plead for him not to put the phone down on me. In my defence, he was going on 36 and he did retire at the end of that season, but it was a lesson learned: do not be the first to speak the ‘R’ word. It’s easy to understand the sportsperson’s sensitivity, too, if they have to give up on a profession long before they might want to.
Such was her dislike of the word, tennis player Serena Williams cryptically announced in August that, rather than retiring from her sport, she would be “evolving away” from it.
Though it might have been a different story had we raised the subject of retirement during his final 2021 season, Dan Martin, 36, the Birmingham-raised Irish cyclist who ended his 14-year pro career at the end of last year, seems content with his decision. It’s been less of an end to something, and more of a new beginning.
“I DIDN’T HAVE
