Last week the cycling world said goodbye to Vincenzo Nibali, Alejandro Valverde and Philippe Gilbert. Earlier this year, Tom Dumoulin already hung up his bike.

World champion, winner of six Grand Tours, monument collector. Riders who have colored cycling for over fifteen years. The generation before that grew up with Michael Boogerd, Frank Vandenbroucke, Michele Bartoli and Davide Rebellin.

The latter is now retired as well. Aged 51.

Never stopped

Boogerd drove his last race in 2007. Paulo Bettini became Italy’s national coach in 2010, but hasn’t been for more than eight years.

The most famous road race in cycling, between Bartoli and Vandenbroucke on the Côte de la Redoute, took place in 1999. Ten years later, Vandenbroucke’s lifeless body was found in a hotel in Dakar, Senegal.

And rebel? It never stopped. At least not if he had his way. Last week he even competed in the Clay Court World Cup in his native Veneto.

The Gravel World Championships were the start of a festive week: the Giro del Veneto last Wednesday was actually supposed to be his last race, but he postponed it by a few days.

The reason: more people could come and watch at the weekend.

Amstel Gold Race

Rebellin turned professional in 1992 and a year later won his first race, the final classification of the German Hofbräu Cup. 60 more victories followed, most recently in 2017 at the Tour of Iran. But that’s not why we remember him.

Because of that miracle week in 2004 when he won the Amstel Gold Race, the Walloon Arrow and Liège-Bastogne-Liège. In the Amstel and in Liège he beat Boogerd in the sprint.

Despite his great spring results, Rebellin was not included in the Italy squad for the Athens Olympics. Out of anger, Rebellin tried to naturalize as an Argentine, but the games came too soon.

In 2008, Rebellin picked up his gram in Beijing by sprinting to silver behind Spaniard Samuel Sánchez. Almost a year later, the IOC announced that the urine samples from six athletes contained traces of doping.

One of them was a rebel. It turned out to be Cera, the second generation of the miracle drug Epo.

In 2009, Rebellin won the Flèche Wallonne for a third time and finished third in Liège-Bastogne Liège before entering his two-year ban. When he was back in the pack after 39 years, he happily picked up where he left off. He showed off the expensive ProTour teams at almost every race he left.

He rarely finished outside the top five, particularly in the Italian Autumn Classics. The smaller races because a contract with the top teams was no longer possible.

doping

In 2016 he was suddenly back on the Grote Markt in Maastricht at the start of the Amstel Gold Race. his last. There he could have found his old rival Boogerd in the team manager’s car had not the Hague native been suspended from the UCI a few weeks earlier following his public doping admission.

Rebel herself shrugged. “Did I use doping? Listen, I’m not going to answer that,” said the Italian a year earlier, before finishing 29th in the Amstel Gold Race. To add in the same breath: “I live a very settled life with a lot of sacrifice and training. If you’ve been doping, it’s not good for you. Then you won’t get any results at 43. Then career is over.”

This career was extended by a few more years with races in all corners of the world. Thirty years later his career seems to be over. Although you never know with Rebellin.

Marc Hirschi won the Classico Veneto, Rebellin’s farewell party. With that, his UAE team closes the season with 48 wins, as does Jumbo-Visma.

Rebellin finished the last race of his 30th season as a professional cyclist as… 30