Nicknamed
“El Toro de Urrao”
(The Bull of Urrao, his hometown), Uran, 37, is part of the
“golden generation”
of Colombian cycling, just like Egan Bernal or Nairo Quintana.
The South American announced on Sunday that he would retire from cycling at the end of the 2024 season to his EF Education-Easypost team.
He came 2nd at the Tour of Italy in 2013 and 2014, and 2nd at the 2017 Tour de France, and won the silver medal at the 2012 London Olympics.
“I think the time has come to say: we have reached the end
,” Uran said during the Tour of Colombia on Sunday.
“It’s something I’ve thought about for a long time, the truth is it’s scary.
For almost 23 years, my goal was to get up, have breakfast and go cycling (...) all this is going to end,”
he added in a press release published by his team.
In an interview with AFP last week, the Colombian declared that he would feel like he was
“losing”
part of his life by retiring.
But he was
“realistic”
about his level.
His childhood had been marked by misfortune, his father, who had introduced him to cycling, having been assassinated in murky circumstances by far-right paramilitaries in 2001. Forced to work as a lottery ticket seller to help his family , he had finally become a professional cyclist at the age of 16.
In addition to his cycling career, Rigoberto Uran is one of the country's most prominent entrepreneurs, thanks to a clothing brand he created ten years ago.
He also owns restaurants and is a television star in Colombia.