There wasn’t much by way of pomp or ceremony, but the occasion was marked all the same. Shortly before the Veneto Classic got underway on Sunday morning, Davide Rebellin was ushered into a spot a couple of metres ahead of the rest of the peloton and he stood there for a minute or so wearing an uneasy smile. The shyness of earlier years may no longer possess him, but it never really left him.
The dance music blaring over the public address system was eventually turned down a notch or so, and the speaker informed the sparse crowds on Treviso’s Piazza Matteotti that this would be the last race of Rebellin’s 30-year career as a professional cyclist.
A smattering of applause broke out on the roadside for the retiring local rider and rippled gently through the bunch, though it wasn’t clear if all the young men lining up behind Rebellin had even heard the speaker’s brief invocation.
Only 20 of the 112-strong peloton had even been born when Rebellin made his professional debut at the GP Camaiore in the faraway summer of 1992. Most won’t have seen his Classic wins in the distant noughties. Many won’t even remember the fall that followed his positive test for CERA at the 2008 Olympics.
Yet, at 51 years of age, he was somehow still there.
A photographer drew in to capture the moment, as Rebellin stood alone, on the threshold of the peloton but not quite a part of it. The applause petered out, and the speaker turned her attention towards counting down excitedly to the start of the race. On zero, the bunch moved off gingerly, and Rebellin faded discreetly back into it.
For much of the past decade, Rebellin has been racing for teams on shoestring budgets in events nestled near the base of the professional cycling pyramid. Every now and then, he would hint that the next season might be his last, but come the turn of the year, he would invariably be pictured in yet another new kit, promoting the wares of another obscure sponsor from Italy, Croatia and Kuwait, ready for another campaign that would take him along roads both known and unknown.
The question is obvious. Why do it? Why keep racing past your 50th birthday for an almost derisory wage?
The answer is obvious, too, and Rebellin doesn’t try to pretend otherwise. Unlike Alejandro Valverde, another recent retiree whose career was bifurcated by…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at CyclingNews RSS Feed…