Ellen van Dijk has announced she will retire from professional cycling at the end of the 2025 season. The Dutch star revealed the news as a guest on De Avondetappe on Tuesday evening, signalling the end of a 20-year career that has helped shape the modern women’s peloton.
She is not taking part in this year’s Tour de France Femmes, but has continued to perform at a high level in 2025. Van Dijk finished second overall at the Baloise Ladies Tour earlier this month, following up on her GC victory at the Vuelta Extremadura Féminas, where she also won the time trial stage. In the spring, she took second at the Amstel Gold Race and placed eighth at the Tour of Flanders.
Van Dijk’s time trial record is one of the most decorated in cycling history. She is a three-time world champion in the discipline (2013, 2021, 2022), a four-time European champion, and won the European Games time trial title in 2015. She also claimed the European road race title in 2020.
Her road race highlights include victory at the Tour of Flanders in 2014 and overall honours at the 2018 Vuelta España Femenina, when it was a short-format race with a TT and sprint stage. She twice won Dwars Door Vlaanderen (2018 and 2019), as well as Omloop van het Hageland (2018), Le Samyn (2013), and a Giro d’Italia Women stage (2013). Van Dijk also took overall victories at the Lotto Belgium Tour (2012 and 2013), the Bloeizone Fryslân Tour (2013, 2016, 2017), and Gracia Orlová (2013).
She began her professional career in 2006 with Vrienden van het Platteland, before riding for teams that would become HTC-Highroad and Specialized-Lululemon between 2009 and 2013. She then joined Boels-Dolmans (2014-2016), followed by Team Sunweb (2017-2018), and moved to Trek in 2019, staying through its current Lidl-Trek incarnation until her final season.
Van Dijk missed the 2023 season to give birth to her first child, before returning for two more years at the top level. The announcement of her retirement comes shortly after that of teammate Lizzie Deignan, marking the departure of two of the most influential figures in women’s cycling over the past decade.
