Alice Maria Arzuffi has announced her retirement from professional cycling, bringing a 14-year career spanning road racing and cyclocross to an end.
The 31-year-old Italian has spent her final two seasons with Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi, but has not raced since abandoning La Vuelta Femenina in May after struggling with health problems. Arzuffi had already decided at the beginning of 2026 that this would be her final season, meaning the difficult last few months did not prompt the retirement itself.
“After 14 years of living, racing and dreaming on a bike, I feel that the time has come for a new chapter,” Arzuffi wrote.
“It has been an incredible and intense journey, and I am proud of everything I achieved throughout these years, but even more so of everything I have learned, both on and off the bike.”
Her full rider profile traces a career which took her through several generations of women’s professional cycling, from a period when combining an international cyclocross programme with road racing was still relatively common to the much more specialised Women’s WorldTour era.
Arzuffi had already decided 2026 would be her final season
Arzuffi’s retirement had been approaching for several months.
She revealed during the summer that she had made the decision to stop at the beginning of the year, before illness disrupted what she had hoped would be a proper farewell season.
Her final race was ultimately La Vuelta Femenina. Arzuffi finished the opening stage but abandoned during Stage 2 after feeling unwell for several days.
She subsequently missed the Italian championships and did not return to competition.
That was particularly frustrating because the national championships had been one of the races she wanted to experience for the final time. Arzuffi was able to begin riding more regularly again during the summer, but a racing return never followed.
She turns 32 in November and had already concluded that this was the right point to move away from the demands of professional competition.
Cyclocross shaped the first half of her career
Arzuffi’s road career eventually took her to the biggest stage races in women’s cycling, but cyclocross was where she first established herself internationally.
She won four consecutive Italian under-23 cyclocross titles between 2013 and 2016 and collected European medals at both under-23 and elite level.
The biggest domestic result came in 2021, when she finally won the Italian elite cyclocross championship after several previous podium finishes.
For much of that period, Arzuffi was one of relatively few Italian women prepared to structure a substantial part of the year around the Belgian cyclocross calendar.
She moved into that environment rather than treating cyclocross as occasional winter preparation, racing against the strongest specialists and spending large parts of the winter based around the sport’s traditional heartland.
Those years became an important part of how she later viewed her career. They required independence, adaptability and an almost year-round racing schedule as one season flowed into another.
Photo Credit: Twila MuzziRoad racing gradually became the priority
Arzuffi was never exclusively a cyclocross rider.
Her professional road career included BePink, Astana-BePink, Lensworld, Bizkaia-Durango, Valcar, Ceratizit-WNT and finally Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi.
She joined Ceratizit for 2023 as the balance of her programme began moving more decisively towards the road. ProCyclingUK covered that move when Ceratizit-WNT confirmed its 2023 roster, with Arzuffi intending to reduce her cyclocross programme to give herself more room to recover and prepare for the road season.
That change reflected the wider direction of women’s cycling.
As the road calendar expanded and racing became faster and more professional, combining a full cyclocross winter with an international road season became increasingly difficult.
Arzuffi had spent years doing exactly that.
Later in her career, she became open about the importance of rest and the cost of continually moving from one discipline into another without a substantial break.
The Giro remained one of the races that mattered most
Few races became more closely associated with Arzuffi’s road career than the Giro.
She started the Italian Grand Tour 11 times.
Ahead of the 2022 edition, she described it as the “race of my dreams” when discussing her ambitions with Valcar, a period covered in our feature on Arzuffi preparing for the Giro Donne.
Her strongest overall Giro finishes included 17th place in both 2016 and 2024, while she also collected a third place on a stage in 2018.
Those results reflected the role she increasingly occupied on the road.
Arzuffi was a durable climber rather than a prolific winner, capable of getting through hard stage races and supporting leaders deep into difficult terrain while taking her own opportunities when they appeared.
Her 2024 campaign became one of the best road seasons of her career and helped earn selection for the World Championships in Zürich.
Four Tours de France Femmes added another chapter
Arzuffi also started four editions of the Tour de France Femmes between 2022 and 2025.
She was part of the Valcar selection for the first modern edition in 2022, alongside Olivia Baril, Eleonora Gasparrini, Silvia Persico, Ilaria Sanguineti and Margaux Vigié.
That original selection was covered by ProCyclingUK before the race in Tour de France Women: Paris awaits the Valcar – Travel & Service.
Arzuffi continued returning to the Tour as her career moved through Ceratizit and then Laboral Kutxa.
By the end of 2025 she had accumulated 11 Giro starts and four Tours, a substantial Grand Tour record for a rider whose early international reputation had been built primarily through cyclocross.
Laboral Kutxa provided the final chapter
Arzuffi joined Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi for 2025 after two years with Ceratizit.
The Basque team recruited her to bring climbing experience to a developing roster alongside riders including Usoa Ostolaza and Ane Santesteban. Her signing was covered at the time in Alice Arzuffi set to lead Laboral Kutxa in mountain stages for 2025 season.
She remained for 2026 as the team continued strengthening its Women’s ProTeam programme.
The 2026 Laboral Kutxa roster again included Arzuffi as one of its most experienced riders, but the season never developed into the farewell campaign she had envisaged.
Her final race came much earlier than expected.
Arzuffi leaves with the experiences outweighing the results
Arzuffi’s retirement message made little attempt to reduce 14 years to a list of placings.
Instead, she focused on the people and experiences that surrounded them.
“I am truly grateful to all the people who supported me along the way: Fiamme Oro, all the teams I raced for, the people from my personal staff, my teammates, all the supporters, friends and, of course, my family,” she wrote.
“Twenty pictures are definitely not enough to sum up a 14-year career, but the memories, the emotions, the victories, the struggles, and all the people I met along the way will stay in my heart forever.”
The results still tell part of the story: an Italian elite cyclocross title, international championship medals, more than a decade racing the Giro, four Tours de France Femmes and a World Championships appearance on the road.
The broader career was defined by moving between two disciplines while women’s cycling changed rapidly around her.
Arzuffi began in an era where racing through the winter and then switching almost immediately to the road was still a viable career model. She leaves after seeing both cyclocross and women’s road racing become more specialised, demanding and professional.
Her final line was much simpler.
“Thank you, cycling.”
