Adam Cianciarulo spoke in the press conference about the curtain closing on his career on Saturday night in Salt Lake City and, as usual, AC had some sincere thoughts on why he retiring and looking back on his career.
The decision to retire and the injury
There’s a lot that went into it, obviously the the nerve injury I’ve been trying to figure out this lack of grip strength in my right arm now for three years and had a bunch of different surgeries to try to fix it. And, if anything, all the surgeries have made it worse, and it it’s one of those things nerves just just need rest.
That’s the only thing that’s going to maybe help it get better and for me to be able to go the speed like would be happy with, I’m just not able to do that anymore and I’m not really able to feel good about what I’m able to put on the track. I can go out there and do my best within reason but it’s just not where I want to be and I don’t want to half ass it really, I would rather move on.
It’s crazy man, like even just being here and just the fact that anybody cares that I’m done racing you know? I really am just the biggest fan of this sport, I started just like everybody else like just riding around in the field with training wheels.
Dealing with big expectations
I had the expectations when I was a kid, and you know people were trying to turn me into, oh is it gonna be the next James or next Ricky or whatever, right?
And of course it it didn’t work out like that but I mean I think it’s kind of I think what resonates with people, is that we we can all you know we all try to plan our lives the best we can and you know we have goals and we do our best to get those but it doesn’t always go according to plan
And for me I I’ve loved this enough, I’ve loved the sport enough to where I really feel that it’s it’s kept me going through that.
When I when I was a kid and people were telling me, ‘oh you’re going to do this, oh you’re going to do that,’ kind of in your head you internalize it and you’re like if if I don’t do that, I’m like a failure…how am I going to be able to live with myself.’
Full interview below:
