Tiffany Cromwell has announced that her 18-year career as a professional racer on the road is now over and she will deliver her final goodbye off-road, at the UCI Gravel World Championships in Western Australia on October 10.
The South Australian has long been one of the nation's key figures in the peloton, starting out with the Lotto Ladies Team in 2010, moving to Hitec Products and then Orica-AIS before settling in at the squad now known as Canyon-SRAM. The rider who has represented Australia at the Olympic Games and World Championships has a win tally on the road that includes Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and two stages of the Giro d'Italia but her role more recently has been focussed on helping her teammates chase victory, with the experienced 38-year-old often slotting in as road captain.
"I’ve been fortunate to have had a very long cycling career with only one major injury," said Cromwell in a social media post announcing her retirement. "I’ve also been able to experience and be apart of the massive change and growth of women’s cycling.
"There’s been many highs and lows and many amazing memories. And I’m happy to be able to finish on my own terms."
Cromwell had initially planned to retire at the end of the 2022 season, having thought she would bow out with a home World Championships on the road in Wollongong. However, the rider who had now also incorporated gravel into her schedule decided back then she wasn't yet ready to walk away.
After another four years in the peloton, she instead took her final bow on the road in the United States, having outlined that the Philadelphia Cycling Classic had been her last road race.
"Philly was a great race to be able to close out this chapter of my career. An iconic race with so much history that was back for the first time in 10 years. The atmosphere was electric and as an added bonus we managed to take home the victory as a team with Chiara Consonni," said Cromwell, adding that there were still three gravel races to go and the last of those is where she'll get her home nation farewell.
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Cromwell has found considerable success in gravel, with a win tally that includes a list of UCI Gravel World Series races and two Unbound 100 wins, plus she has swept up the national title in the discipline the last two years.
That makes this year's Gravel World Championships in Nannup a fitting farewell as she will bow out as the reigning national champion in a home World Championships race, which also happens to be on the same course where she celebrated victory at the SEVEN UCI Gravel World Series race earlier this year.
A victory there again would, of course, make for the perfect fairytale ending, but no matter where she finishes she'll be guaranteed one of the loudest cheers of the weekend of racing.
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Simone is a degree-qualified journalist that has accumulated decades of wide-ranging experience while working across a variety of leading media organisations. She joined Cyclingnews as a Production Editor at the start of the 2021 season and has now moved into the role of Australia Editor. Previously she worked as a freelance writer, Australian Editor at Ella CyclingTips and as a correspondent for Reuters and Bloomberg. Cycling was initially purely a leisure pursuit for Simone, who started out as a business journalist, but in 2015 her career focus also shifted to the sport.
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