Davide Rebellin will still be a pro bike racer at 50
Davide Rebellin has extended his pro racing career into a 29th season by signing with Italian Continental team Work Service Marchiol Vega.
Rebellin, who started his pro career way back in 1992, will still be racing when he turns 50 in August this year.
Rebellin was linked with the Cambodia Cycling Academy for this season but a deal never eventuated. Instead, Rebellin took to social media over the weekend to announce that he’d signed with Work Service Marchiol Vega.
“It’s nice to be able to ride with new goals and with the support of managers that made me feel their closeness and their trust,” Rebellin said in a team statement. “For me cycling represents much more than a job and a passion: I see myself again in my young teammates, their aspirations and their projects. More than teaching them something I would like to convey to the whole team the emotions that cycling gives me every day.”
Rebellin will be the oldest rider on the team by a considerable margin. In fact, at 49, he’s more than twice the age of the next oldest rider.
As part of his role with Work Service Marchiol Vega Rebellin will help with the development of the team’s Dynatek bikes.
“I’m happy to be part of Dynatek’s big family as well,” Rebellin said. “I like the philosophy that goes along with this brand, the willingness to give life to an entirely Italian high technology product and the search for the performance that goes along with every project.”
Rebellin has 61 career victories to his name, including three editions of La Fleche Wallonne, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Paris-Nice, Tirreno-Adriatico and the Amstel Gold Race. His career was marred by a positive test for CERA at the 2008 Beijing Olympics where he took a silver medal in the road race. That medal was subsequently taken from him, and Rebellin served a two-year ban.
He returned to the sport in 2011, aged 39. After a couple of years in the Continental ranks he spent four seasons with the CCC Sprandi Polkowice Pro Continental team. Since 2017 he has ridden for a series of small Continental teams, now including Work Service Marchiol Vega.
Rebellin will debut with the team on March 3 at the Trofeo Laigueglia, an Italian one-dayer he first raced back in 1994. He finished third in both the 1999 and 2001 editions.
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