Jose Luis Arrieta forced to retire
Most professional cyclists retire before they’re 40, but 39-year-old José Luis Arrieta wasn’t planning on retiring less than a week from the end of the Vuelta a Espana, the third and final Grand Tour of the season and the only road
cycling event which rivals the Tour de France in international importance. The Spanish AG2R rider has ended his 16-year professional career after abandoning the Vuelta in the 14th stage.
“I had already made clear that I was going to retire this year, but the way I was going to do so hadn’t been decided,” said Arrieta in Pamplona, where he was receiving medical attention.
Arrieta has developed tendinitis in his right knee. He had planned on leaving the sport at the end of the season, but his knee trouble had developed to the point where he couldn’t compete anymore. In an almost-poetic way to finish
his career, Arrieta dropped out of the Spanish Grand Tour at the foot of the Lagos de Covadonga, the same climb which proved too much for five-time Tour de France winner Miguel Indurain, who was one of the record holders in Tour de France wins until Lance
Armstrong got his sixth and seventh yellow jerseys.
“[I’m] sad to have to quit in such a way,” said Arrieta. “You find yourself all alone, just as Indurain did then, and you think back over all the things that you have experienced in cycling.”
The Spanish veteran started his career on Team Banesto in 1993 and supported Indurain in his attempt to take his sixth Tour de France win, in 1996, the year he abandoned the race and quit professional cycling. Arrieta was with Banestro
until 2006, and has fulfilled his reputation as an extremely reliable domestique, with only two cycling tour stage wins to his credit, one in the 2006 Vuelta.
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