The departure of Dominik Nerz from professional cycling has caught many by surprise. The German rider was signed by Bora - Argon18 as their future grand tour star but in recent months seemed to struggle to deliver a consistent performance. 

Finally, Nerz has opened up about the reasons for his retirement in an interview with the newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung. He explains that he has suffered regularly from headaches, dizziness and disorientation following the numerous crashes in 2015. Nerz hit his head on several occasions, first at the 2015 Criterium du Dauphiné. Despite the problems, he was completely focused on the goal of the Tour de France and kept riding. At the Grande Boucle, however, he crash again and since then things have beenmore difficult and he never managed to return to the level that marked him out as the next grand tour rider from Germany.

With cycling now belonging to his past, Nerz hopes to recover completely from these problems in a process that he expects will take more than a year.