Popovych bids adieu to from racing to take directeur sportif job at Trek-Segafredo

Trek-Segafredo declared Yaroslav Popovych’s retirement.

He raced in his last race for the team at the Paris-Roubaix on Sunday. The man from Ukraine turned pro in the year 2002 with Landbouwkrediet-Colnago after snatching the U23 road race title. He would move into a directeur sportif position with the squad.

Popovych said that this would be quite the adaptation for him. From the bike to the car of the director. He just love driving cars, but that is not the same as driving for five hours at 40 kilometers per hour! It could be really challenging to work with the athletes he rode with till yesterday, but he is ready for it.

This is really a magnificent scope. This is something that has been on his mind for some time, even though in a way quite not anticipated as the team just approached him regarding this last winter and gave him this offer to ride till Paris-Roubaix. He has always known that he would stay involved in cycling. And this is perfect: to stay with the same group of people.

Once, Popovych was seen as a possible successor to Lance Armstrong when he got together the Discovery Channel team in the year 2005. The earlier year he had won a stage of Giro d’Italia and kept the race lead for 4 stages. In the year 2005, he finished twelfth overall in Tour de France and was the best young rider.