After almost a quarter of a century, there is one man still standing from Italian cycling’s class of 1992, the generation of riders who were held back from turning professional until after that summer’s Barcelona Olympics.
Men such as Michele Bartoli, Francesco Casagrande, Wladimir Belli, Giovanni Lombardi and Andrea Peron have been retired for a decade or more. Fabio Casartelli, gold medallist in the road race in Barcelona, tragically died in a crash at the 1995 Tour de France. This past Sunday marked the 12th anniversary of Marco Pantani’s death.
Somewhat improbably, Davide Rebellin is still here. At 44 years of age, the Italian is again in the professional peloton for the 2016 season, which he admits is likely to be his final year of his long career.
ADVERTISEMENT
“My motivation is the same as it ever was,” Rebellin told Cyclingnews as he begins the Tour of Oman after also completing the Dubai Tour and the Tour of Qatar. “Bigger than before, actually. Even when the echelons start up...”
It seems oddly fitting that Rebellin’s career should be bookended by Olympic years. His cycling life will forever be defined by his positive test for CERA after he finished second to Samuel Sanchez in the road race event in Beijing in 2008. When the anti-doping violation was eventually made public the following spring, days after he won his third Flèche Wallonne, Rebellin became the first Italian athlete in any sport to be stripped of an Olympic medal for doping. The man who had briefly aspired to the priesthood in his youth was cast into the wilderness.
While others, such as Ivan Basso and Michele Scarponi, were quickly able to return to their prelapsarian status on top-level teams after their doping bans, Rebellin was consigned to a sort of limbo when his suspension expired in 2011, riding for Miche and Meridiana before landing at Polish Professional Continental outfit CCC-Sprandi in 2013.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://ift.tt/1VmUL8x
No comments:
Post a Comment