Ludvig Anton Wacker, a promising young Danish racer and a member of the Sunweb Development team for two seasons, could not shake off the anxiety stemming from his high-speed crash in 2020 and his disillusionment with pill use in the pro peloton, decided to put an untimely end to his cycling career.

In a wide-ranging interview with Feltet.dk (opens in new tab), Wacker said he struggled to regain confidence and lost motivation to race and train during the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season.

Additionally, like many young riders who have quit the sport in the past, Wacker pointed to pill use as another reason for his disillusionment.

"I'm sick of the pill in the sport. It may be a legal pill, but I'm sick of the pill in cycling and I think it's grotesque that it has to be so obvious," Wacker told Feltet.dk.

"It's so blatant. In the big races, people are running with little containers of pills in their pockets. You don't want to take anything yourself, but in the finals the other racers are taking things you aren't taking. They have painkillers, caffeine, etc. They are all drinking ridiculous amounts. You never know what that's going to do to a rider's body in 20 years," Wacker said, absolving the team of any responsibility.

"I think a lot of times young riders do it on their own. It's not necessarily the team doing it. Riders can get it themselves. It's very easy to get it."

Wacker, who won the junior Ghent-Wevelgem at age 17, moved to the Netherlands at 18 and joined Sunweb's development team in 2019; in his second season, he raced only three days before a pandemic shut down the calendar. After his first competition back, a downward spiral began, and Wacker eventually made the decision to quit.

"There are several reasons to quit. I crashed at Landers Bike Week last year," he told Feltet.dk. The event is a four-day race for all levels, from amateur to professional. The crash itself was high-speed, but I wasn't hurt too badly. But in my head, it was much worse than it was.

"Then everything went wrong at the Danish Championships in 2020. So I was standing on the side of the road with my mom and dad. The next day I called Sunweb and said I didn't want to run at Sunweb, even though they offered me an extension. I had to go home."

Feeling too young to move to the Netherlands and fully immerse himself in pro cycling, Wacker returned to Denmark in hopes of finding his feet in racing again and joined the CO:Play-Giant team, but instead found the opposite.

"I was actually in good shape going into this year's season, but when I got to the first race, I was completely turned on mentally and actually scared. I don't know what caused it. After that, the pattern repeated itself: I was doing well in training, but as soon as I put the number on my back, I was afraid of crashing."

"I'm now in a situation where I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to race again.

Wacker, who now works part-time in a bike store, also struggled to find inspiration for his training.

"I had no motivation. Suddenly I was enjoying going to work, and going out to train on a night in Copenhagen in January might not have been much fun. It's not very exciting to train in Copenhagen. I'm used to training around Roskilde, where my parents live, and it's a very nice place, but here it's just more of the same main streets."