Lotta Henttala retires after 11 years as a pro to have second child

EF Education-Oatly's Lotta Henttala has retired from professional cycling as she is pregnant with her second child.

Henttala, who turned professional in 2014, is one of Finland's most successful cyclists, six times the national champion, and was at one time one of the premier female sprinters. She has already come back from maternity leave once in 2023 after having her first child in 2022.

She signed for EF Education-Oatly in 2024 and has taken three wins for the team in the last 18 months, but is calling time on her career at 36.

"This will be my second child, and for me, I think it’s a little bit too hard to come back again with two kids. I think it’s my time to retire," Henttala said.

"Plus, the peloton is getting so strong! I don’t know if I have that much to give to racing anymore. Maybe I would, but retiring had been in my mind a little bit, so I think this is the natural way to exit."

Henttala is the winner of races such as Gent-Wevelgem and Dwars door Vlaanderen, and took her last road win as recently as January, winning the Trofeo Marratxi-Felanitx in Mallorca.

However, she hasn't raced since February, due to illness and then becoming pregnant – she is now 21 weeks along. Though other riders have come back after a second child, Henttala said it wasn't difficult to decide to stop racing.

"The decision was quite easy. Even before this pregnancy, retiring was in the back of my mind. This year I had a rough spring with illness, and I had a heavy crash last summer. Just bad luck," she said.

"After the off-season, when I started training again, I was still thinking about that crash, and it was still mentally affecting me. But when I won Trofeo Marratxi-Felanitx in January, of course, I started thinking, ‘OK, maybe one more year after this.’ Then, I got sick and missed the Classics.

"I spoke to my [former teammate] Coryn Labecki before I found out I was pregnant again, and she said that if it happens, then it’s meant to be, and I was already thinking that way. That’s how I know it’s time to leave cycling," she said.

As well as being one of the female cyclists who pioneered coming back to race at the top level after motherhood, Henttala – Lotta Lepistö before she married – has also been an influential figure in Finnish cycling, a country with relatively few professional cyclists.

"I'm from Finland and we’re not a very common cycling country so I hope I was a good example for all Finnish people that you can also jump from our country to being one of the best riders in the world. I hope I gave that inspiration," she said of what she wants her legacy to be.

After a long time of being the only female pro from Finland, Henttala leaves behind two young Finnish riders in the Women's WorldTour peloton: Aniina Ahtosalo (Uno-X Mobility) and Wilma Aintila (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto).

"Beyond that, all the time I was on this team, I wanted us to always race as a team. I hope I brought that attitude to my teammates. If we want to win, we need to race together."

Henttala joins Lizzie Deignan and Chantal van den Broek-Blaak as a rider who is retiring due to pregnancy this year.