Promising Scottish rider Anna Shackley forced to retire from cycling at 22

Anna Shackley has been forced to retire from cycling due to a cardiac arrhythmia, it was revealed on Tuesday.

The Scottish SD Worx-Protime rider finished second at the Tour de l'Avenir Femmes last year and was a former under-23 British time trial champion. She was also third in the under-23 category at the World Championships last August, in her home city of Glasgow.

However, after a series of tests, the 22-year-old has been forced to leave elite sport, her team announced.

"We are very sorry to see Anna's cycling career end like this," Danny Stam, the team's directeur sportif said on Tuesday. "She was one of the bigger talents in the women's peloton. We saw in recent years that she was making good progress and we believed she could grow to the top of the world. 

"It is especially unfortunate for her that she is now forced to stop. On the other hand, we are also happy that we were able to prevent any more dangerous complications. We hope Anna can return to her 'normal' life and we will work with the team to see how we can help."

The press release from SD Worx-Protime said that Shackley was diagnosed with an arrhythmia in January, and she had a heart screening at the Maxima Medisch Centrum in Veldhoven in collaboration with the SD Worx-Protime's medical team following this. After more tests the decision to end her cycling career was taken.

"To say I'm devastated would be a huge understatement," Shackley wrote on Instagram later on Tuesday afternoon. "Cycling has been my entire life for as long as I can remember and unfortunately it has come to a premature ending. 

"I had many plans and ambitions for the future and that being taken away from me has been very hard. However, I found myself lucky to ave had the unique experience of being a professional in my hobby. Wee Anna would never have believed that." 

Shackley has not raced for SD Worx in 2024, her last race being the European Championships last September, where she finished second in the under-23 road race. 

This year was expected to be her breakout year, after she finished fourth at the UAE Tour Women, second at l'Avenir, and on the youth classification podium at the Tour de Romandie and the Giro d'Italia Donne in 2023.

She has been at SD Worx, the world's best women's cycling team, her whole career, after joining in 2021. Shackley finished seventh at the Ceratizit Challenge by La Vuelta in 2022, underlining her promise.

"We’re incredibly sorry to hear Anna’s news today," Stephen Park, the Great Britain Cycling Team's performance director, said. "She was an asset to the sport, both on and off the bike and will be a real loss to the peloton.

"We have offered Anna our full support now and in the future, and wish her all the best in managing her condition and her next steps. We’re sure she’ll be brilliant at whatever she does next."

The Scot is not the first rider to be forced to leave cycling early due to a heart condition, but she is notably young. 

Last September, Nathan Van Hooydonck was forced to retire from professional cycling after he was fitted with an internal defibrillator to prevent any future cardiac arrhythmia, while Sonny Colbrelli retired after suffering an unstable cardiac arrhythmia at the Volta a Catalunya in 2022.