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Two weeks ago Liam Phillips confirmed his retirement from cycling as the most successful male BMXer Britain has ever seen.

Phillips rode a BMX for 23 years and was British, European and World Champion. Also racing the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and unbelievably racing in London in 2012 despite fracturing his collar bone 10 weeks before the event.

He wore a rainbow jersey, which was one of the highest awards a cyclist could win.

In February this year he crashed again (he crashed many times as a BMX rider with many injuries) but this time he broke his wrist.

He was treated by one of the most renowned wrist surgeons in the UK to get him back on his bike and back to work. Sadly in November it became clear though the injury he had sustained would end his career.

On announcing his retirement he thanked his medical team and his surgeon for all the hard work and expertise in trying to save his career.

And that’s the point I’d like to show.

When someone attends to see me having lost a tooth or teeth that need to be replaced we will try our best to make that possible.

If you’ve lost your teeth through gum disease, smoked your whole life and been unable to clean them properly, the problem is, you had gum disease, smoked and was unable to clean your teeth.

The problem is not that I tried to fix something and was unable to do so.

I suspect Liam Phillips was heart broken that he was forced into retirement from the sport that he loved, but he was also clever enough to understand that the root of his problem was falling off his bike, not the perceived inadequacy of an expert trying to fix him.

Blog post number: 1482