Pierre Rolland announces retirement after B&B Hotels-KTM collapse

Pierre Rolland has announced his retirement after the demise of his B&B Hotels-KTM team earlier this month.

The 36-year-old had raced with the Breton squad for the past three seasons, but has now decided to call time on his career after the team folded due to a lack of sponsorship.

In a video message posted to Twitter on Tuesday, Rolland said, "I would have liked for the adventure to continue, but fate has decided otherwise and I'm announcing that I'm ending my professional career.

"My career is already 'made' in a way, so for me, it's not the most difficult day," he added, referring to the demise of B&B. "The young people, the staff, the mechanics, those who haven't approached other teams and find themselves in this situation – for them it's hard."

Rolland turned professional with Crédit Agricole in 2007, spending two seasons at the squad before moving on to Bbox/Europcar for seven years. Those peak years saw the best results of his career, including three top-10 placings at the Tour de France and fourth overall at the  2014 Giro d'Italia. 

In 2011 and 2012 he captured stage wins at the Tour at mountain stages up L'Alpe d'Huez and Les Sybelles.

From 2016-18 he raced with American squad Cannondale and added another Grand Tour stage to his palmarès, triumphing at Canazei in the final week of the 2017 Giro.

For the past three seasons, Rolland raced at ProTeam level with B&B, picking up the Tour de Savoie-Mont Blanc and a combativity prize at the Tour in 2020 and the mountain classification at this year's Critérium du Dauphiné. His last win came on stage 6 of the 2021 Tour du Rwanda.

Last week, Rolland had hinted at the possibility of retirement while also expressing sympathy for B&B boss Jérôme Pineau.

"I've had some contacts, and I maybe have the possibility to continue. But I also have the possibility to stop," Rolland told the OuestFrance newspaper, adding that "a career change" is something that he had already started planning.