Ben Swift did not wait for a press release. On Tuesday 1 September, the 38-year-old posted on Instagram that his 18th season would be his last.
“Yeah, so this is it. I’ve decided to retire,” he said in the video.
“It’s been 18 great years, I never really in my wildest dreams thought I’d have such a long career and a successful career along the way.”
The legs, he says, are still there.
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“I still love riding my bike. I love the training, I love the racing, and I think I decided to finish this year because I still feel like I’m at a high enough level to enjoy the racing,” he said.
Sky, UAE, and back to Ineos
Swift turned professional with Team Katusha in 2009 before joining the newly formed Sky Procycling in 2010. Save for two seasons at UAE Team Emirates in 2017 and 2018, he has ridden for the same British outfit through every rebrand, from Sky through Ineos Grenadiers to today’s Netcompany-Ineos.
His CV includes 10 Grand Tour starts and 25 Monuments. The standout line comes from Milan-Sanremo, where he was third in 2014 and second in 2016. On the track, he took the scratch race world title in 2012.
Stage wins came at races including the Tour de Pologne and Tour Down Under, and he won the British national road race title twice, in 2019 and 2021.
Road captain to the end
For most of the past decade Swift has ridden as road captain, the man on the radio when the plan needs adjusting. It is a role that rarely produces a headline win, and for all his top-tens at the Classics he leaves without a Monument or a Grand Tour podium.
“I want to finish kind of on my own terms, on a high, enjoy my racing, and just make the most of it, you know?” he said.
The schedule was built around that idea. Swift rode this month’s Tour of Britain, a race he first started as a teenager in 2006, before a short block of Italian one-days. His final professional start comes at Paris-Tours in October.
Bob Jungels, Victor Langellotti and Andrew August are also leaving Netcompany-Ineos at the end of the season.
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