Two-time Tour de France stage winner Steve Cummings has announced his retirement from professional cycling.
The 38-year-old endured an injury-hit final season with Dimension Data, which ended in unfortunate fashion when he crashed out of the Tour of Britain during stage five on his home turf, suffering multiple broken vertebrae in the incident.
“I wanted to continue another year, I felt pretty physically good but the opportunity wasn’t there to continue,” Cummings said.
“I searched around for opportunities and they kind of dried up so that’s it, I’ve got to retire and find a different job…
“I was happy to continue but I was also happy to stop, I’m not sitting here super sad. I’m just grateful for the opportunities I’ve had.
“I’m pretty privileged really to have lived my dream and to look back with good memories.
“One more year would have been nice but that was more about how it ended. In one way it was good to finish my career one kilometre from home, but not with a broken back, that’s not ideal.”
Cummings enjoyed the most successful seasons of his career in his first two years with the South African team, winning a stage at the 2015 Tour de France and following that up with an impressive 2016 campaign that saw him win another Tour stage and the overall title at the Tour of Britain, among other big results.
