Olympic silver medallist Emma Pooley will be hoping to sign off from cycling in style after announcing that she will retire after the Commonwealth Games road race.
Pooley has enjoyed a glittering career on two wheels, winning time trial silver at the 2008 Games in Beijing before upgrading that to gold at the 2010 World Championships in Melbourne.
She had to settle for bronze the following year but became the 2014 national time trial champion earlier this year.
Pooley will now hope to propel Lizzie Armitstead to gold in Sunday’s road race at the Commonwealth Games which she has revealed will be her last competitive race.
Pooley, who recently completed her PHD in geotechnical engineering, will now focus on her triathlon and running career in which she has already enjoyed considerable success, winning the Lausanne Marathon in October 2013.
British Cycling president Bob Howden paid tribute to Pooley’s career, saying: "Emma has been a tremendous ambassador for cycling both on and off the bike and for women's sport in general, never far from the action wherever she applied her undoubted talents.
"At British Cycling she will be long remembered as a rider who gave her all for her team and she retires with the thanks and best wishes of British Cycling and our members.
"It was back in 2005 as the organiser of the National Road Race Championships that I and many others first became aware of Emma's talent as a bike rider; then as a solo rider for Cambridge University CC she took on the established riders and teams to finish close to the podium in fourth place.
"This kick-started a career that has seen Emma compete at the highest level both in road racing and in the time-trial; a discipline where she became Olympic silver-medallist in 2008 before going on to be World Champion in 2010, her Palmares being bolstered in this same year by becoming both the National Road Race and National Time Trial Champion."
© Sportsbeat 2014