Aurélien Canot, Media365, published on Friday November 29, 2024 at 4:48 p.m.
Ignatas Konovalovas (38) announced on Thursday that he was ending his career. The Lithuanian rider from the Groupama-FDJ team, winner of a stage at the Giro in 2009, was mainly known for shining in the time trial.
Ignatas Konovalovas kept his word. The experienced Lithuanian still active at 38 (Editor's note: He will be 39 on December 8) had suggested that he would not go beyond the current season, his sixteenth in the professional peloton. The rider of the Groupama-FDJ team, where he settled nine years ago when the training dear to Marc Madiot still bore the name FDJ only, confirmed Thursday via a press release published by his team – which will therefore remain the last of his long career – which he bowed out at the end of this final season marked by a back injury which disrupted his plans. “I am proud and happy to put an end to my career. The choice was already made last winter anyway when I signed my contract for 2024,” declares the double champion of his country on the road, whose major stroke of brilliance will forever remain this stage victory at the Giro in 2009. As a symbol for this specialist in solitary effort, it is in the time trial, his favorite discipline, that Konovalovas had signed this only victory for him on a Grand Tour, on the occasion of this final meeting of the Tour of Italy that year: a time of 15.3 kilometers in the streets of Rome.
Konovalovas “proud of (his) career”
Newly retired, the Lithuanian seven times crowned Lithuanian time trial champion has no regrets when looking back for the first time on his life as a professional runner. The person concerned, who says he is “very proud of (his) career and the way in which it has evolved” (“If my career were a glass, I would have the feeling of having filled it entirely. I am sure of “having done one hundred percent of what I could do.”) assures in any case, but not without obvious sadness, that he could no longer continue. “On the one hand, I felt a certain relief. Part of me knew that this was the best solution in the end. I had given everything, but it was no longer possible. On the other hand, I felt a sense of relief. , I was still a little sad.” The only downside once again in the eyes of the Lithuanian is not having been able to thank his team as he would have liked to do, namely by going to the end of this farewell season. “Groupama-FDJ gave me a lot, and we also gave a lot to each other. She will forever remain in my heart and my mind like my family in cycling. I would have loved to be able to leave through the front door .” While waiting to perhaps become a rider agent. “I think this is an area where I could contribute something.”
