Adam Cianciarulo prepares for his final race – Gatedrop.com

Adam Cianciarulo spoke at the press conference about the end of his career Saturday night in Salt Lake City and, as usual, AC had some candid thoughts on why he retired and made a comeback on his career.

The decision to retire and the injury

There are a lot of things that were involved, obviously the nerve injury. I’ve been trying to figure out this lack of grip strength in my right arm for three years now and have had many different surgeries to try to fix it. And, if anything, all the surgeries have made it worse, and it’s one of those things where the nerves just need rest.

That’s the only thing that will maybe help things improve and for me to be able to go at the speed that I would be happy with, I’m just not able to do that anymore and I’m not really able to feel good about what is happening. I am 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 really want to do things halfway, I’d rather move on.

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It’s crazy, man, like just being here and everyone caring that I’m done running, you know? I am truly the biggest fan of this sport, I started like everyone else by walking around the field with training wheels.

Facing high expectations

I had expectations when I was a kid, and you know people were trying to make me, oh, is this going to be the next James or the next Ricky or whatever, right?

And of course it didn’t work out that way, but I mean I think that’s kind of what resonates with people is we can everything you know we’re all trying to plan our lives as best we can and you know, we have goals and we do our best to achieve them, but it doesn’t always go as planned

And for me, I loved it enough, I loved the sport enough that I really feel like that’s what kept me going through this.

When I was a kid and people were like, “oh you’re going to do this, oh you’re going to do that,” you kind of internalize it in your head and you’re like if if I don’t do this, I’m like a failure…’

Full interview below: