Emma Pooley announces her retirement

Emma Pooley has announced that she will retire from cycling after competing for England in the Commonwealth Games road race in Glasgow on Sunday.

The 31-year-old, who completed her PhD on geotechnical engineering last year, broke the news of her retirement in an interview with Sarah Connolly for Rouleur.

She said: "I want to go out properly, when I've planned it and have no regrets.

"I've been mulling it over, and came to the conclusion that the Commonwealth Games is the perfect opportunity."

The former world time trial champion and silver medallist at the 2008 Beijing Olympics took a break from cycling last year to focus on her studies.

She returned this season with Lotto-Belisol, scoring victories including the British national time trial championship and three stages of the Giro Rosa earlier this month.

"After the first Giro stage win, there was a little bit of me that thought about carrying on until Rio 2016, but the decision was made.

"Maybe I had a good Giro because the weight was off my shoulders. Maybe it was the last-chance saloon," she added.

Pooley sits on the UCI’s Women's Commission, and was one of the leading cyclists who lobbied for La Course, the women’s race preceding the Tour de France finale in Paris, which had its inaugural edition last Sunday.

British Cycling president, Bob Howden said: "Emma has been a tremendous ambassador for cycling both on and off the bike and for women's sport in general, never far from the action wherever she applied her undoubted talents.

"At British Cycling she will be long remembered as a rider who gave her all for her team and she retires with the thanks and best wishes of British Cycling and our members.”

Pooley now plans to focus her athletic talents on triathlons running events such as marathons– sports in which she has already enjoyed some success and which she noted earlier this year had brought her more prize money than she ever received in cycling.