Thomas Dekker ‘listens to heart and head’, retires from cycling
Dutch cyclist Thomas Dekker is retiring from the sport with immediate effect. ‘I’ve listened to my head and to my heart,’ he said in a statement. ‘I’m out. I am stopping cycling.’
Dekker, who is 30 and comes from Noord-Holland, tried to set a new world hour record in Mexico last month but failed by one lap.
Viewed as one of the greatest talents of his generation, Dekker went professional in 2005.
In 2009 he was suspended for two years after admitting using doping several times in the 2007 and 2008 seasons. He said in an interview with the NRC in 2013 that he started using performing enhancing drugs when he joined the Rabobank cycling team in 2005.
Rabobank broke up its professional cycling team in 2012 because of the doping scandal.
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