The former World Champion Marta Bastianelli has announced her retirement date – 9th July 2023 – the final day of the Giro Donne. The Italian originally announced her retirement last February, with an intent to finish at the close of the 2022 season. However, a strong 2022 saw Bastianelli decide to delay those original plans. She will instead race another Spring Classics campaign in 2023 before closing out at the Giro Donne on home roads.
In 2022, Marta Bastianelli won at the Vuelta CV Feminas, Setmana Ciclista Valenciana, Omloop van het Hageland, Festival Elsy Jacobs (Stage + GC) and the Bretagne Ladies Tour. She didn’t win a race after the beginning of May but came very close to doing so. Bastianelli was 2nd on Stage 6 of the Tour de France Femmes, finishing behind a dominant Marianne Vos. She was also 3rd on the final stage of the Ceratizit Challenge by La Vuelta in Madrid. That day she was 2nd behind Elisa Balsamo who has arguably come through to take over from her older compatriot.
Bastianelli has had an up-and-down career, after initially bursting onto the scene in 2007, the year she won the World Championships, she served a 2-year ban between 2008-2010. When she came back to the peloton, she had lost some of what allowed her to be a regular winner and didn’t really recapture her form until 2016. 2017 was a so-so season but each year since then, Bastianelli has been a top-25 rider in the FirstCycling rankings. 2019 was her best season with high-profile wins at the Tour of Flanders, Vårgårda WestSweden and Ronde van Drenthe. Since then she has 14 victories but only a 2021 stage of the Women’s Tour has been at WWT level.
“Everything has a beginning and an end. Cycling has given me so much. We have decided with the team that the Giro d’Italia will be my last race, I will end my career where it began, here in Italy. I will be available to the team, because it is rightly so.”
Marta Bastianelli
