Elena Cecchini brought her professional racing career to a close at the Eneco Tour Women on Sunday, ending a career that stretched from the early 2010s to the modern Women’s WorldTour and included national titles, international medals and a long spell as a road captain at Team SD Worx-Protime.
The 34-year-old Italian had already decided that 2026 would be her final season. She initially considered stopping a year earlier, but extended with SD Worx-Protime for one last campaign, saying at the time that “the fire is still burning” and that she wanted another year to help guide the team’s leaders. ProCyclingUK covered that final contract extension in September 2025.
Her last race came in Arnhem at the end of the 2026 Eneco Tour Women. Cecchini lined up for the final stage as a support rider for SD Worx-Protime, the role that had increasingly defined the second half of her career. Her strongest individual results came earlier, but positioning, tactical awareness and experience kept her in a leading WorldTour team through to her final season.
From track racing to the top of the road peloton
Cecchini’s career was never confined neatly to one discipline. She came through the Italian system as both a road and track rider, and that combination shaped the way she raced. On the track she collected under-23 European honours, national titles and elite European bronze medals in both the scratch and points races in 2014.
By then, her road career was already gathering momentum. Cecchini turned professional in 2011 with Forno D’Asolo Colavita and moved through MCipollini-Giambenini-Gauss, Faren-Let’s Go Finland and Estado de México-Faren Kuota before establishing herself as one of Italy’s strongest all-rounders.
She won the Trophée d’Or Féminin overall in 2012, taking a stage on the way, but the clearest sign of what was coming arrived in 2014 when she won the Italian road race title for the first time.
Three straight Italian road titles
Cecchini won the Italian road championship in 2014, 2015 and 2016. The third title was particularly emphatic: she attacked with seven kilometres remaining in Boario Terme and stayed clear to beat Elisa Longo Borghini.
Those championships came during a period in which Cecchini was also collecting strong international results. She finished second in the under-23 European road race in 2014, won a stage of the Festival Elsy Jacobs in 2015 and took top-10 finishes in major one-day races including the Tour of Flanders and GP de Plouay.
Her range made her difficult to categorise. She was quick enough to win reduced sprints, strong enough to survive selective Classics and disciplined enough against the clock to become a national champion there too. She later added Italian time-trial titles in 2018 and 2019.
The 2018 season also brought gold at the Mediterranean Games time trial and one of the major team results of her career. Racing for Canyon SRAM, Cecchini was part of the six-rider squad that won the final UCI trade-team time trial world title in Innsbruck alongside Alena Amialiusik, Alice Barnes, Hannah Barnes, Lisa Klein and Trixi Worrack.
European silver and five seasons at Canyon SRAM
Cecchini spent five seasons with Canyon SRAM from 2016 through 2020. Those years coincided with some of her most consistent international racing and turned her from a rider known primarily for Italian championships into a regular presence across the WorldTour calendar.
Her best individual senior championship result came at the 2019 European road race in Alkmaar. Cecchini finished second behind Amy Pieters, adding a continental silver medal to a career that had already included success on both road and track.
She remained closely involved with the Italian national programme. At the World Championships she helped Italy to bronze in the mixed relay in 2021 and silver in 2022. At European level, Italy won the mixed relay in 2024 with Cecchini in the women’s trio, and she added another silver medal in the event in 2025.
Cecchini also represented Italy at two Olympic Games. She finished 20th in the road race in Rio in 2016 and returned to the Games eight years later in Paris, where she finished 25th. Reaching Paris had been one of the goals that kept her career going into her thirties.
SD Worx years changed the shape of her career
Cecchini joined Team SD Worx for 2021, arriving from Canyon SRAM at a point when her role was already beginning to change. ProCyclingUK reported her move to the Dutch team in 2020.
The value SD Worx placed on her increasingly came from work that did not show up in the results sheet. Cecchini became a road captain, helping organise positioning, reading tactical situations and supporting riders who were expected to finish the job.
That role mattered on a team packed with leaders. Across her six seasons there, Cecchini raced alongside riders including Anna van der Breggen, Demi Vollering, Lotte Kopecky and Lorena Wiebes. Her job was often to keep the race under control, move a leader into position or recognise when the team needed to react before a dangerous move had fully formed.
It was also why SD Worx-Protime kept her into 2026. When Cecchini announced that the season would be her last, the team described her as a strategically important rider and mentor for younger teammates rather than judging her role by personal wins.
A career that stretched across different eras
Cecchini raced professionally from 2011 through 2026, spanning a period in which women’s road cycling changed dramatically in calendar depth, team structure, professionalism and television coverage.
She rode 12 editions of the Giro d’Italia Women, three Tours de France Femmes and three Vueltas, while also building a long Classics record that included 12 starts at the Tour of Flanders, five at Paris-Roubaix Femmes and repeated appearances at Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Milano-Sanremo Donne.
Across that time she collected 12 road victories, including two stage-race overall wins, three Italian road championships and two national time-trial titles. The bulk of those wins came before her later shift towards team duties, but they underline how successful Cecchini had been in her own right before becoming better known as a road captain.
Her final season reflected that later role. Cecchini raced the UAE Tour Women, the spring Classics, the Giro d’Italia Women and Tour de France Femmes, then continued through the late summer and autumn before making the Eneco Tour her final race.
Cecchini’s final race at the Eneco Tour
The Eneco Tour finale in Arnhem closed the career without a final personal result to chase. Cecchini was part of an SD Worx-Protime squad still racing for the general classification with Femke Markus, while Marthe Truyen eventually won the stage and Lieke Nooijen secured the overall title. ProCyclingUK’s final-stage report covers how the race unfolded.
Cecchini’s last start therefore looked much like many of her later seasons: she was there to help shape the race for somebody else. That role had become central to her place at SD Worx-Protime and was the reason the team kept trusting her in major stage races and Classics even as her personal win tally stopped growing.
The finish in Arnhem closed 16 professional seasons, three consecutive Italian road titles, two national time-trial titles, a world team time-trial title, European road silver, two Olympic appearances and six seasons with SD Worx-Protime.
