Sonny Colbrelli has announced his retirement, revealing the emotions he’s been through since suffering an unstable heart arrhythmia at the Volta a Catalunya in March, but also his desire to start a new chapter in his life.
“New challenges await me, and with courage, I prepare to face them with a smile on my face. Keep looking forward to every race I do, even if it’s just for fun and no longer for competition,” Colbrelli said in his official announcement released by his Bahrain Victorious team on Sunday.
“A year ago in this period, I spent my days celebrating the most important victory of my career, Paris-Roubaix. I never thought that I would find myself a year later to face one of the most difficult times that life has faced me, ”
“But it’s my life that I want to be grateful for, a life that I risked losing and that gave me a second chance. That of being here today, to remember that I came out of the Hell of the North victorious, and I did so in a legendary way, which will go down in history and which I can continue to tell my children. It is to them, to my family and to all my relatives that I owe this new life.
“In them, I draw the strength to accept this moment in my sporting career which sees me here today to renounce being able to add to my record a victory in a Grand Tour or Flanders, the dream of a lifetime.”
Colbrelli confessed to his friends and former colleagues at the recent season-ending races in Veneto that he had made a decision about his future. An official announcement was scheduled for November 15 but La Gazzetta dello Sport revealed his plans on Saturday and Colbrelli therefore confirmed his decision to end his professional career.
Sonny Colbrelli has announced his retirement, revealing the emotions he’s been through since suffering an unstable heart arrhythmia at the Volta a Catalunya in March, but also his desire to start a new chapter in his life.
“New challenges await me, and with courage, I prepare to face them with a smile on my face. Keep looking forward to every race I do, even if it’s just for fun and no longer for competition,” Colbrelli said in his official announcement released by his Bahrain Victorious team on Sunday.
“A year ago in this period, I spent my days celebrating the most important victory of my career, Paris-Roubaix. I never thought that I would find myself a year later to face one of the most difficult times that life has faced me, ”
“But it’s my life that I want to be grateful for, a life that I risked losing and that gave me a second chance. That of being here today, to remember that I came out of the Hell of the North victorious, and I did so in a legendary way, which will go down in history and which I can continue to tell my children. It is to them, to my family and to all my relatives that I owe this new life.
“In them, I draw the strength to accept this moment in my sporting career which sees me here today to renounce being able to add to my record a victory in a Grand Tour or Flanders, the dream of a lifetime.”
Colbrelli confessed to his friends and former colleagues at the recent season-ending races in Veneto that he had made a decision about his future. An official announcement was scheduled for November 15 but La Gazzetta dello Sport revealed his plans on Saturday and Colbrelli therefore confirmed his decision to end his professional career.
Colbrelli was fitted with a subcutaneous defibrillator to protect him against further cardiac arrhythmias, but Italian law does not allow athletes to compete with the lifesaving device. He considered removing it but the risk is just too high and he didn’t want to take it for personal and family reasons.
“After what happened in Catalunya, the hope of being able to continue being a professional driver never left me, although minimal. I knew that the way back would be difficult with a defibrillator,” Colbrelli explained. .
“Removing the defibrillator goes against best medical practice and means removing a lifeline that is needed as a secondary prevention. Too high a risk. A risk that I cannot afford to take, for me, for the opportunity that life, God in whom I believe, has given me, for Adelina, for Vittoria and for Tomaso, for my parents too.
Colbrelli vowed to keep smiling through life, revealing he would stay in the sport with Bahrain Victorious and be a role model for young riders in Bahrain’s development teams.
“I say goodbye to cycling and I try to do it with a smile for the good it has brought me, even if it hurts to say goodbye after a season like last year. It was the best of my career. I learned what life offers and what life takes. But it also gives back in a different form,” he said.
“I’m ready to keep trying to be a champion, like on the bike. I will stay in cycling with the Bahrain Victorious, who have been close to me like a second family and will accompany me in this period of transition from rider to a new role which will evolve on a daily basis. I will be an ambassador for our partners, work closely with the performance group and share my experience with my teammates.
I was delighted to see how the children took me as a role model these last months. Maybe, I think, because the mud-covered man looks a bit like a superhero. For them, I would like to do something sooner or later. In the meantime, I will also have the opportunity to be a reference for the Bahrain Victorious team and the development teams: Cycling Team Friuli and Cannibal U19.
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