Davide Rebellin (9 August 1971 – 30 November 2022) was an Italian professional road bicycle racer, who rode professionally between 1992 and 2022 for twelve different teams, taking more than sixty professional wins. He was considered one of the finest classics specialists of his generation with more than fifty top ten finishes in UCI Road World Cup and UCI ProTour classics.[4]
Rebellin was best known in the cycling world for his 2004 season, when he won a then unprecedented treble with wins in Amstel Gold Race, La Flèche Wallonne and Liège–Bastogne–Liège. He also won stage races such as Paris–Nice and Tirreno–Adriatico, and a stage in the Giro d'Italia. Rebellin served a two-year suspension for testing positive for Mircera at the 2008 Summer Olympics.[5]
Born in San Bonifacio in the province of Verona, Rebellin turned professional in 1992 and came to the attention of the cycling world with a string of strong performances during his early years. He suffered from asthma, a disease that affected his whole career. In 1996 he gained further notice when he thrived in the 1996 Giro d'Italia. Riding for Team Polti, Rebellin took stage seven and with it led in the general classification, giving him the pink jersey. He held the lead for six stages and finished the Grand Tour sixth overall. Years later he said of the race, "I have won Classics, but the first important win was in the 1996 Giro, winning the maglia rosa with the stage."[6]
In 1997 he scored his first UCI Road World Cup victories by winning the Clásica de San Sebastián and the Grand Prix de Suisse. Over the following years he won many Italian classic races, such as the Giro del Veneto and Tre Valli Varesine.
In 2001, he won the Tirreno–Adriatico stage race.
During the 2004 season he amassed seven victories, including what was at the time an unprecedented treble win in the Ardennes classics, with wins in the Amstel Gold Race, La Flèche Wallonne and Liège–Bastogne–Liège. Only one rider, Philippe Gilbert, has repeated this feat since, in 2011. Rebellin also scored a number of podium places in top races such as Paris–Nice and the Clásica de San Sebastián. Despite these achievements, Rebellin did not win the 2004 UCI Road World Cup, which went to Paolo Bettini.
In 2005, Rebellin fell short of his triumphs of 2004, but posted yet another solid year. Although he generally concentrated on classics and small tours, he was part of the Gerolsteiner team in the 2005 Tour de France. With a number of solid performances throughout the season but without any individual victories, Rebellin finished as the third-highest ranked rider in the UCI ProTour rankings. Apart from the ProTour races, he only won one race in the 2005 season, taking the first stage of the Brixia Tour.
Rebellin began the 2007 season leading Paris–Nice until Alberto Contador moved him to second in the final stage to Nice. He later finished second in Amstel Gold Race and won the Flèche Wallonne, which made him the oldest ever winner of an UCI ProTour race. He finished second in the UCI ProTour behind Cadel Evans.
Rebellin triumphed early in 2008 with an overall victory in the Paris–Nice. He won the stage race by three seconds, ahead of Rinaldo Nocentini.[a] He went on to win the Tour du Haut Var and show strongly in the Ardennes classics with a second place in the Liège–Bastogne–Liège.
Rebellin finished second in the men's road race at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing having been part of a six-man breakaway group, but his silver medal was revoked in light of his doping sentence by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).[7][8]
On 16 August 2011, Rebellin took his first victory after returning from his doping suspension, winning Tre Valli Varesine four seconds ahead of Domenico Pozzovivo.[9]
On 28 April 2015, at 43 years old, Rebellin won the queen stage of the Tour of Turkey, a mountaintop finish concluding in Elmali. He beat riders twenty years younger than him to accomplish this feat.[10] With that performance, he grabbed the leader's jersey, but lost it to Kristijan Đurasek on Stage 6.[11] He had to abandon on the last stage since he crashed after hitting a dog.[12]
In 2017, Rebellin rode for the Kuwait–Cartucho.es team, winning three races.[13] After one season with the team, he moved to Sovac–Natura4Ever for the 2018 season.[13] He rode for the team up to February 2019, when his contract was terminated by mutual consent. In April 2019 he announced that he had rejoined the Meridiana–Kamen team and that he would retire from competition after the Italian National Road Race Championships at the end of June.[14] He finished his supposed last race in 18th place, almost five minutes behind new Italian champion Davide Formolo.[15] One day later, Rebellin announced that he would continue his career.[16]
On 8 December 2020, Rebellin announced that he would continue for a record 29th season in professional racing, initially signing with the Cambodia Cycling Academy team for 2021.[17] However, this deal fell through, and in February, Rebellin signed with Italian team Work Service–Marchiol–Vega.[3] Rebellin remained with the team into the 2022 season, which he stated would be his last professional season in a January interview with Spanish publication Marca.[18][19]
Rebellin was hit by a truck and killed while out on a training ride on 30 November 2022, at the age of 51.[20]
According to the Austrian newspaper Der Standard, Rebellin was killed instantly in the incident, which took place at Montebello Vicentino shortly before midday. The German truck driver stopped briefly, then fled the scene. Police were able to reconstruct the incident and identify the driver. Witnesses had photographed the driver at the scene. The driver had been found guilty of a similar offence before.[21] The driver turned himself in to German authorities in June 2023, awaiting a decision on extradition to Italy. According to prosecutors, the man had tried to destroy evidence by cleaning the vehicle with "a strong cleaning detergent". He had earlier been charged with fleeing the scene of an accident in Southern Italy in 2001 as well as for driving under the influence in 2014.[22] The alleged perpetrator's name was given as Wolfgang Rieke, his extradition to Italy was confirmed by a German court on 6 July 2023.[23]
In April 2009, the IOC announced that six athletes had tested positive during the 2008 Summer Olympics, without mentioning names or sports. Later, rumours emerged that the athletes included two cyclists, one of them a medal winner.[24] The Italian Olympic committee then confirmed that a male Italian cyclist had tested positive for CERA during the men's road race, without identifying a name. The next day, on 29 April 2009, the Italian Olympic committee confirmed that Rebellin was an involved athlete. Rebellin's agent sent a request for the analysis of the B sample[25][26] which was later also confirmed to be positive.[5] The Italian National Olympic Committee subsequently took Rebellin to court, seeking €500,000 in damages and a twelve-month custodial sentence under an Italian law passed in 2000 allowing for athletes who dope to be jailed for up to three years. However, in 2015 a court in Padova ruled that he had no criminal case to answer, in addition to clearing him of charges of tax evasion.[27][28]
Source: [29]
Team time trial, UCI Junior Road World Championships (with Rossano Brasi, Andrea Peron and Cristian Salvato)
Overall Driedaagse van Axel
Overall Hofbrau Cup
after Stages 7–12 Overall Tour Méditerranéen
Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
Overall Tour Méditerranéen
Points classification Overall Brixia Tour
Overall Brixia Tour
Overall Paris–Nice
Road race, Olympic Games Overall Tour du Gévaudan Languedoc-Roussillon
Points classification Overall Sibiu Cycling Tour
Points classification
Mountains classification| Grand Tour | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Giro d'Italia
|
20 | 22 | 6 | — | 30 | 30 | 29 | DNF | DNF | — | DNF | — | DNF | DNF | DNF |
 Tour de France
|
— | — | — | 58 | — | — | — | — | — | DNF | — | — | — | — | — |
 Vuelta a España
|
— | — | 7 | — | — | DNF | — | — | — | — | — | — | DNF | DNF | DNF |
| — | Did not compete |
|---|---|
| DNF | Did not finish |
.JPG)
