Although only three days remain until the official start of the season (Saturday, January 17th, the first stage of the Tour Down Under will inaugurate the 2026 WorldTour calendar), the list of riders deciding to say "enough" to cycling continues to grow. In addition to the 58 professionals who retired at the end of 2025, in these first days of January, Simon Yates and, in the very latest hours, Amund Grøndahl Jansen and Romain Combaud have also joined.

The thirty-one-year-old Norwegian, national road champion in 2019, has dispelled any doubts about his future by announcing in a rather amusing way on his social media that he has definitively closed the chapter on cycling.

"Things you couldn't do as a professional cyclist" is written next to the video posted by the '94 born rider, showing him climbing a mountain at high altitude, an activity he will certainly be able to pursue in the coming years thanks to his imminent change of life.

For Jansen, who has been repeatedly afflicted in recent times by physical problems (primarily a femoral artery issue) that have forced him to undergo surgery multiple times and endure lengthy recoveries, his professional journey comes to an end after nine seasons (four with Visma, four with Jayco, and one with Uno-X), a path that saw him achieve, besides the national championship, a victory in the third stage of the ZLM Tour in 2019.

Romain Combaud's career, on the other hand, ended without major highlights among the elite. The thirty-four-year-old Frenchman, who has been with what is now Picnic PostNL for the last five years, never managed to raise his arms in victory, but over ten seasons at the highest levels, he was nonetheless appreciated as a hard worker and team player, proving to be an important presence in the various rosters he was part of.

"After a long period off the radar, I announce that I have decided to end my cycling career at the end of 2025" he wrote on his social media accounts.

"It's an opportunity for me to take stock: I was fortunate to spend 15 years living my passion, of which 11 years in the professional world and the last 5 at the highest levels; I traveled around the world; I met teammates and staff members with whom I shared much more than races, training hours, or massages: with them, it was above all a wonderful human adventure," Combaud continued.

"The time has come to thank everyone who supported me closely or from afar, throughout a career of ups and downs. I particularly thank my family and my wife for their support: the arrival of my son was decisive for me and played an important role in my decision to stop. At 34, it's time to close this chapter with great pride and open another in which I will dedicate myself to new professional projects."

With his retirement, and that of Grøndahl Jansen, 17 riders who had a contract with a World Tour team in the past season still have to officially communicate their intentions for 2026 or, more generally, their future.