MONDORF BAINS: Luxembourg’s Andy Schleck, winner of the 2010 Tour de France, on Thursday announced his retirement after failing to recover from a knee injury.

“I’m obviously disappointed to end my career like this,” said the 29-year-old Schleck.

“I would have liked to keep on fighting but my knee just doesn’t allow it.

Since my crash in the UK there has hardly been any progress. While the ligaments have healed, the damaged cartilage is another story.

“I have been working hard on rehabbing the knee but came to the hard realisation that at the risk of irreversibly injuring it, this is the best course of action.”

Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme said Schleck’s untimely departure from the sport left a bitter taste of underachievement after the great promise of his early results.

“He had the natural talent and after what he did at the Giro d’Italia (2nd in 2007 at 22-years-old) we thought he’d go on to have a brilliant career,” he said.

“We really thought he was going to do something special, but the last three seasons have been littered with falls,” added Prudhomme, who pointed to a broken pelvis on the 2012 Dauphine as the beginning of the end.

During his career, the Trek Factory Racing leader stepped four times on to Grand Tour podiums, with runner’s up spots on the Giro and twice on the Tour de France.

Apart from his 2010 Tour victory, Schleck triumphed in the 2009 Liege-Bastogne-Liege.

Published in Dawn, October 10th, 2014