Veteran Australian racer Amanda Spratt announces retirement at the end of 2026

Lidl-Trek rider Amanda Spratt has announced that she'll call time on her racing career at the end of the 2026 season after 15 years in the professional peloton.

The Australian racer is entering her fourth season with the German squad, having raced with the BikeExchange team from 2012 to 2022.

Along the way, Spratt has been crowned as Australian road champion three times – in 2012, 2016, and 2020 – while she scored a three-peat at the Women's Tour Down Under between 2017 and 2019.

The 2018 edition of the Basque Women's WorldTour stage race, Emakumeen Bira, stands as her biggest win, while later that same spring, she also won a mountain stage of the Giro Rosa en route to finishing third overall.

2018 would go down as the best season of her career, with Spratt rounding it out with a silver medal at the Road World Championships in Austria.

More recently, Spratt formed part of Australia's victorious Mixed Relay TTT squad at the Rwanda Worlds, adding a gold medal and rainbow jersey to her career haul.

"I am still motivated and still training hard ahead of the 2026 season. I don’t want my career to just fizzle, I want to keep putting the effort in," Spratt said as Lidl-Trek announced the news.

"I am still really motivated and I still love what I do, so I want to go out on a good note. Of course, I would love to win a race, I haven’t done that in a long time, but mostly, I would just love, over the next year, to be a really valued team member and contribute to some big results for my teammates.

"I think we have built an exciting group and we have a really good short and longer term vision which is something really excites me."

Spratt will start her final season in the peloton with another participation at her home race, the Women's Tour Down Under, though the remainder of her 2026 plans have yet to be announced.

She said that she's far from tired of racing, but noted that she'd like to go out on her own terms.

"I like the idea of being able to finish on my own terms and being able to choose where my finish line is," Spratt said.

"The reason I want to announce it already is that I think it’s going to be quite special to share my final season with so many people that have supported me both near and far, rather than just get to the end and then announcing that I’m stopping and maybe then I don’t get the chance to share it with so many people."