It’s hard to think of a better way to end a long and fruitful cycling career than a home World Championships.
That had in fact been Tiffany Cromwell’s plan back in 2022 when the Road World Championships took place in Wollongong, but it was in fact another rainbow jersey race that was announced that very week which will provide the most fitting swansong.
That race is the UCI Gravel World Championships in Nannup, Australia which is set to unfold on October 10 and 11, and will be the Australian veteran’s final outing as a professional cyclist.
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“You can go through those moments where you think like ‘This is it’, and then when the time comes think ‘Oh, actually, you know, being able to race your bike professionally is still pretty cool, and having all the races that we have is also pretty cool’,” Cromwell told Cyclingnews about her delayed decision to retire. “Having gravel, that was definitely a renewed interest to me.”
A renewed interest that took her through four more seasons, where she not only played a valuable support role while riding on the road for Canyon-SRAM, often as a road captain, but also swept up a long list of gravel victories. That included Australian titles, two Unbound 100 wins and a number of UCI Gravel World Series victories., including three at SEVEN in Nannup, which is where this year’s World Championships will play out.
“I’m definitely happy I pushed on until now,” said Cromwell. “I’ve done a lot between then and now.”
It’s also meant that while she may not have been given the opportunity to bow out at a home rainbow jersey race in 2022, with both her desire to continue and team selections standing in her way, the delay has delivered a chance to make that dream a reality in Nannup.
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“Having the UCI World Championships of gravel in Australia, that’s a good way to go out and finish,” she said. “I’m just getting to the point where I’m getting tired, trying to keep the level that you need to be at for women’s cycling; a level that is now super challenging if you don’t dedicate everything to it.
“I’ve done so many years of that, I think you just feel it and it’s nice that I can choose when. It’s not that I didn’t have options for a contract or that I had an injury that stopped me. It was just me.”
After 12 seasons with the same team and 17 as a professional cyclist, Cromwell won’t only be waving farewell at a home World Championships, but this time can do it as a serious contender, in a discipline and on a course where she has a strong winning history. On top of that she’ll have the Canyon team for support, a new bike with what she expects – based on her previous experience on the course – to be the ideal set up and the strong form she is carrying heading toward the event is clear. Her last two UCI Gravel World Series races through September resulted in a second and first place.
“I was happy with how the sensations were,” Cromwell told Cyclingnews when speaking after the Falling Leaves Lahti and in the days before her Tartu Rattamaraton win. “So you know I’ll keep plugging along, a few more weeks of punishment, but I’m excited to just go in with a clear head for Gravel Worlds.
“Of course I’d love a fantastic result, it’d be a fairytale to win, but I’m also realistic. I can turn up, I can give my best, and see what that is. Marianne Vos is coming, and you know she’s always in amazing form, no matter what time of year, and there’s a lot of strong gravel riders turning up as well.
“So I just want to go there, race my bike, see what I can do, and just enjoy it. If I get something in the end, that’s going to be a fantastic way to finish. If I don’t, it’s not the end of the world. I’m going with that mentality.”
What happens when it is over?
Gravel may be a discipline that has proven reinvogorating and looks set to deliver the ideal farewell but, for Cromwell, it is certainly not the retirement plan.
“People are like, ‘Oh, you’ll still race gravel’ but what they don’t realise is that gravel is evolving so quickly, and the level is also increasing so quickly. And if you race, you want to be competitive, you want to be fighting for wins and fighting for podiums … so you then still have to train as hard, and for me that’s one of the biggest things.
“I’m still happy to ride my bike, but it’s the hurting yourself, doing the efforts – that side becomes harder – and if you stay to race gravel you still need to do the painful part.”
That doesn’t mean Cromwell is totally ruling out pinning on a number in the future – “never say never” – but with a different mentality.
“I can do some races for fun for sure,” said Cromwell, who through the years has often been accompanied to events by her partner, F1 driver Valtteri Bottas.
“With Valtteri, like he’s still loving cycling a lot and probably would want to do races, and I’m like, OK, I can be back to support but then you know maybe I throw in. Or maybe we’ve talked about in the future, just for fun, doing the Cape Epic together or something like that, those kind of challenges.”
Cromwell, who already has a number of projects on the go, is however keeping the path flexible as she moves beyond her career as a professional cyclist, wanting time to enjoy a little freedom and travel. That doesn’t mean she’s likely to disappear from the industry.
“At the moment, it’s still very open,” said Cromwell when asked about what is next. “I don’t have any kind of ambitions to day to day life with a cycling team, at least definitely not right now. But for sure, I still need to remember my biggest strength, or what I’m known for, is cycling. So it’s not like I’m completely walking away because I think there’s still a lot of opportunities.”
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