Full name Davide Rebellin Rider type Classics specialist Height 1.71 m Nickname Tintin 1992–1995 GB-MG Maglificio Weight 63 kg | Name Davide Rebellin Parents Gedeone Rebellin Discipline Road Role Bicycler | |
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Spouse Francoise Antonini (m. 2014) Siblings Carlo Rebellin, Simone Rebellin, Stefano Rebellin Similar People Samuel Sanchez, Alexandr Kolobnev, Fabian Cancellara, Paolo Casalis | ||
Current team CCC-Sprandi-Polkowice | ||
Davide rebellin ardennes triple 2004
Davide Rebellin (born 9 August 1971 in San Bonifacio, province of Verona) is an Italian professional road bicycle racer, currently riding for Kuwait–Cartucho.es. He is 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.
Contents
Rebellin is 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 has also won stage races such as Paris–Nice and Tirreno–Adriatico, and a stage in the Giro d'Italia.
Rebellin served a 2-year suspension for testing positive for Mircera at the 2008 Olympic Games.
Filmato dietro moto di davide rebellin
Career
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 suffers from asthma, a disease that will affect his whole career. In 1996 he gained further notice when he thrived in the 1996 Giro d'Italia. Riding for Polti, the young Italian took stage seven and with it the maglia rosa. He held the leader's jersey for six days 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."
In 1997 he scored his first UCI Road World Cup victories by winning the Clásica de San Sebastián and the Züri-Metzgete (then known as 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 3 seconds, ahead of Rinaldo Nocentini. 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 won the silver medal in the Men's road race at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. He was a member of a six-man breakaway group and claimed second place in the sprint finish. This medal has now been revoked in light of his doping sentence by the International Olympic Committee.
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. With that performance, he grabbed the leader's jersey, but lost it to Kristijan Durasek on Stage 6. He had to abandon on the last stage since he crashed after hitting a dog.
Doping
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. 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 which was later also confirmed to be positive. 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 Padua ruled that he had no criminal case to answer, in addition to clearing him of charges of tax evasion.