Adrien Costa leaves Hagens Berman Axeon and cycling
Feb 06 2018 08:34 pm CET
Hagens Berman Axeon Cycling Team logo
Hagens Berman Axeon has announced that American promise Adrien Costa will not be returning to the team for the 2018 season.
The rider, who was the first American to win the Tour of Bretagne, left the team in July of 2017 due to fatigue. At the time Costa had concerns that training and racing had taken over his life to an unhealthy degree.
During these last months, the rider embarked on several new activities like traveling, working in other fields and considering new education options. Despite leaving the door open for a return at the beginning of 2018, he decided to stay out of the team and cycling, at least for the moment.
"I’m just not ready to come back yet," he said. "The more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn’t want to hold a spot on the team when that meant denying someone else the opportunity. Since I stopped racing in April 2017, I've learned a lot about myself and realized how big, and unbalanced, of a part of me was cycling."
"I knew that if I was going to race again, it'd be in a much different, more relaxed way. I wasn't able anymore to have the single-minded, razor-sharp focus for training and racing that I once woke up with daily. I knew I had to lean on other things in life to provide me more balance and more happiness overall."
After a lot of thinking, Costa decided that the team deserves better than this new version of him. "When it came to thinking about racing, however, I could tell my heart was not 100% in it," the rider commented. "And cycling is such a hard sport that there's no faking it when that's the case. So as our Axeon team camp draws near, I realized that the team deserved more than a half-assed version of me. I decided that I didn't want to take a much more deserving, much more motivated individual's place in the team and that I didn't want to be paid to race mediocrely in just a few events in 2018.
"This upcoming year I'm extremely excited for what's ahead. I will return to Oregon State University to finish my studies in Outdoor Leadership and Tourism, perhaps minoring in psychology along the way. I will always love being outside; hiking, skiing, rock climbing, and cycling- road and mountain- and I don't want that pure passion and love for it to get spoiled."
But from the distance, Costa will continue supporting the team. "I'm also looking forward to seeing what kind of amazing races the Axeon boys will have this year. The group is as dynamic, motivated, and strong as ever, and I've no doubt of their successes this season."
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