August 21
2024
at
11:08
Edvald Boasson-Hagen retires: – Beloved and well-liked
Edvald Boasson-Hagen (37) is retiring from professional cycling after 16 years in the sport. The Norwegian profile announced this himself on Instagram.
– 2024 will be my last season, and I look forward to spending more time with my family and exploring new opportunities in life after cycling, he writes.
It is only after Paris-Tours at the beginning of October that Boasson-Hagen will retire.
– There is a time for everything. It feels right and good, I think. I have been involved for a long time and have had many good results. I have previously thought that retirement age is around 35 or 40 years, and I am retiring somewhere in between there, says the Norwegian cycling profile to NRK.
Although the Norwegian has invested a bit in real estate and will continue to do so, he does not have the biggest plans for the future.
– I will enjoy life more with my daughter. Then we will take it as it comes, says Boasson-Hagen.
He is praised by his Norwegian competitor Alexander Kristoff.
– Yes, he can look back on a good career. We have competed against each other for many years. He was very good early in his career and has perhaps struggled more in recent years, writes Kristoff to NRK.
– But we are the same age, and there is indeed a time for everything as he says, Kristoff continues, who himself has a contract with Uno-X until the end of 2025.
Kurt Asle Arvesen is also full of praise for Boasson-Hagen.
– I remember he burst onto the cycling scene with a storm. Energetic, fearless, and winning a lot. I will never forget Wevelgem and later Tour de France stages. We got to know him, so I wasn’t surprised when he took silver behind Gilbert at the World Championships. He is beloved and a very well-liked guy. Definitely one of the best Norwegians of all time, he tells NRK.
Boasson-Hagen took the cycling world by storm already in his first season as a pro in 2008, where he, at 21 years old, took his first victory at the highest level.
In 2009 he won the major race Gent-Wevelgem, and in 2011 he claimed two stage victories in the Tour de France. The following year he won silver in the World Championship road race, while he was part of the Sky team that won bronze in the team time trial at the World Championships in 2013.
Boasson-Hagen won another stage in the Tour de France in 2017, but he has not won a race since he took the opening stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné in the summer of 2019.