Even though he had already announced last winter that this 2024 season would be his last, Ignatas Konovalovas (Groupama-FDJ) officially ended his long professional career via a press release from his team. After seventeen years as a runner, the last nine of which were spent at the Groupama-FDJhe stopped at the age of 38 for a difficult final season, truncated by injuries, which prevented him from participating in any race. Known to be a valuable teammate and a good road captain, he still has 12 professional victories, having notably won the Lithuanian Championship of the time trial, the Four Days of Dunkirk in 2015, as well as the last stage of Tour of Italy in 2009.
Video – Interview with Marc Madiot, boss of Groupama-FDJ
“Staying in the peloton for 17 years when you come from a small country is not easy”
For his team, he looked back on his long career: “If my career were a glass, I would have the feeling of having filled it in its entirety. I am sure that I have done 100% of what I could do. I spent seventeen years in the pros, including nine in the Groupama-FDJ Cycling Team I think it's really not bad After everything I've been through, all the knowledge I've learned along the way, I'm proud and happy to put an end to it. to my career. The choice was everything. way already noted last winter when I signed my contract for 2024.” Although he is recently retired, he already has some ideas for his career change: “I'm trying not to think about it too much at the moment, but it's not easy because ideas are flying through my head. I would like to stay in cycling, I have a few ideas. I'm still thinking about becoming a rider's agent. I think this is an area where I could contribute something.”
He finally takes great pride in his career: “I'm very proud of my career and the way it has evolved. At the beginning, each of us as kids dreams of being a champion, of winning races. Then you realize pretty quickly if this is your path or not, I quickly understood that it was not mine Even before my victory in the Giro, I knew that I would be a team member, and it did not bother me at all to be one. confirm that I enjoy riding for someone else. I'm happy with my career, because staying in the peloton for seventeen years when you come from a very small country is not easy. That means I wasn't. not there for nothing, and especially not because my father or my uncle knew someone… It means that I was valued for my abilities, for what I could bring, from a sporting and human point of view”he concludes.
