Former professional cyclist Davide Rebellin died in a training accident with a truck in northern Italy. The 51-year-old Italian died on Wednesday morning (November 30, 2022) in the northern Italian town of Montebello Vicentino, as the Carabinieri confirmed on request.
According to initial findings reported by the media, Rebelin collided with a truck as it turned onto the road. The truck then moved away from the scene of the accident – the driver may not have noticed the collision, it said. The authorities did not initially give any further details.
Career recently ended
Rebellin only ended his long active career this season and drove a charity invitation race in the Principality of Monaco at the weekend. He was a specialist in one-day races and in 2004 he won the classic Amstel Gold Race, Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège for the German team Gerolsteiner within a week. In 1996 he also won a stage of the Giro d’Italia.
Later, however, he wrote negative headlines when he was stripped of his Olympic silver medal in Beijing in 2008 because of doping. Follow-up checks in April 2009 had convicted him of taking the blood doping drug Cera. He was banned for two years, but always denied doping offenses and fraud to the end.
Recently active in the third division
After his doping ban, Rebellin remained active for smaller teams, most recently for the third-class racing team Work Service-Vitalcare-Dynatek. “Please tell me that’s not true”, tweeted the Italian national team coach and ex-professional Daniele Bennati.
Rebellin was not the first Italian professional cyclist to die in a truck accident. The former Giro d’Italia winner Michele Scarponi was also run over and killed in April 2017 at the age of 37 during a training drive by a van.