Imogen Cotter

In April 2024, Imogen Cotter made a decision that many athletes fear but few are prepared for: she retired mid-season. There was no long goodbye. No carefully mapped-out exit plan. Just a sudden stop and a year of feeling completely lost.

But sometimes, losing your path is the only way to find a better one.

Speaking from her home in Girona on the Sigma Sports Unplugged Podcast, Imogen reflected on her rapid rise within the sport, a life-changing crash, and building a new future in cycling media.

Late to cycling, early to belief

Imogen didn’t grow up inside the traditional cycling pathway. She was a runner. A swimmer. A triathlete by accident. Cycling was just something in the background — cross-training between running injuries.

Then in 2018, everything shifted. Cycling Ireland launched a talent transfer program, inviting athletes from other sports to test their potential on two wheels. Imogen flew back from London to give it a shot. Her raw numbers weren’t extraordinary. But her rate of improvement was. One test improved by 48% in six weeks. That was enough. Soon she was in Mallorca training with the Irish track squad.

Then came the first crossroads — not selected for the team pursuit squad at the final hurdle. For many, that would have been the end. For Imogen, it was a left turn.

A move to Belgium

A huge change for Imogen was relocating to Belgium. This was not to a development setup, neither to the start line of amateur kermesses, the chaotic, wind-lashed classroom of European road racing. Her first race? A pro criterium in Herentals. WorldTour riders and cobbles were the order of the day. Wrong tyre pressure and dropped immediately saw her finish last but smiling.

That was because something clicked. Belgium doesn’t just teach fitness. It teaches grit. Cotter worked as a cleaner, in a bakery factory loading bread, and as a postwoman starting at 4:30 a.m. — all to fund her racing dream. That’s the hidden truth of pro cycling. Before the contracts, there are alarm clocks and conveyor belts. Most importantly, she kept going.

Irish National Championships and that pro contract

In 2021, after years of graft, doubt, and working with a sports psychologist to overcome fear in the peloton, something shifted. Imogen won the Irish National Championships. Not by luck, not by surprise, she knew she would.

She told her mum before the race: “I’ll be back as national champion.” When she crossed the line, the world felt bright and surreal. A dream made real. She had done it.

Soon after, Imogen signed professionally with Fenix–Deceuninck. A salary, a contract and a winter in Girona instead of the wet roads of the west of Ireland. Everything had finally aligned.

A life changing event

Three weeks into her new life in Spain, Imogen was hit head-on by a car overtaking another rider. The impact should have killed her. Instead, she survived but with devastating injuries.

A broken patella, fractured femur, a fully ruptured quad and patellar tendon and severe wrist damage. Five surgeries followed. This left her alone in a Spanish hospital, unsure of the language, unsure of her future, unsure if she would ever walk normally again, never mind race. 

Comeback to racing

Physically, Imogen made an extraordinary return. She set all-time best five and ten minute power numbers in 2023. But something had shifted. She couldn’t sleep and in the peloton, her hands shook. PTSD didn’t arrive immediately — it arrived later, when the surgeries were over and the body had healed.

At one race, she looked across at another rider who looked calm and relaxed and realised she was gripping the bars in terror. That was the moment.

You cannot compete at the highest level if you don’t care about the outcome or if you’re afraid every second. In early 2024, she stepped away from racing.

EMDR Therapy

What followed wasn’t defeat, it was courage of a different kind. Imogen underwent EMDR therapy (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing), a trauma-focused treatment designed to help the brain store traumatic memories properly, as past events and not present threats.

Slowly, cycling changed again. Bike rides stopped ending in tears and she could watch races again. Imogen rediscovered something she thought she’d lost: joy.

The next chapter

Now, Imogen is building a new path in cycling media. Her goal isn’t watt-per-kilo breakdowns or hyper-dense race analytics.

She wants to tell the human stories inside the peloton, whether that be stories of the teammate who gives up their bike, the quiet sacrifice and the emotional undercurrents that make the sport relatable, especially to audiences who may find traditional cycling analysis overwhelming.

Imogen's studying, creating short-form cycling news content, and carving out a voice that feels fresh: informed but accessible. Passionate but grounded. Her belief is simple: If people understand the humans inside the sport, they’ll fall in love with cycling too.

Reinvention isn’t failure, elite sport teaches obsession, focus and sacrifice. But sometimes the bravest decision isn’t to keep pushing, it’s to pivot.

Imogen's story isn’t about a career cut short. It’s about adaptation, refusing to let trauma define the rest of her life and about taking the determination that once won her a national title and applying it somewhere new.

Imogen once chased contracts across Belgium. Now she’s chasing something different, connection, storytelling and impact. If her track record tells us anything, it’s this: When she decides she wants something, she goes after it. Even if it means starting again.