Domenico Pozzovivo to retire after Il Lombardia: "To continue would be like asking for trouble"
CyclingFriday, 06 September 2024 at 10:00
Domenico Pozzovivo will leave professional cycling at the end of this season 2024. He will do so wearing the colors of VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè and racing two of the mythical races in his country as the classic Giro dell'Emilia and the monument Il Lombardia. It will be on October 12, a month and a half before his 42nd birthday.
"The reasons I am retiring are clearly my age and the risk associated with cycling. To continue would be like asking for trouble. However, I don't lack enthusiasm or excitement for cycling. It never happens to me that I don't feel like getting on the bike or that I'm dragging because I have to train. I always want to train and compete," Pozzovivo told Bici.Pro.
"I'm looking forward to racing the Giro dell'Emilia and the Giro di Lombardia. In 2022, I got on the podium at the Giro dell'Emilia (3rd), after fighting with Tadej Pogacar. As for the Giro di Lombardia, it's the classic I like the most and the one that fascinates me the most. I would love to have a good result there."
The Italian leaves with a stage win in the 2012 Giro d'Italia as the highlight of his career. He also won the overall classification at the Giro del Trentino that same year and has finished in the Top 20 of the 12 times he has raced the Giro, being Top 10 on seven occasions and twice finishing 5th. He was also 6th in the 2013 Vuelta a España.
In major one-week races, he has a win in the 2015 Volta a Catalunya and another in the 2017 Tour of Switzerland. We're talking about a pure climber and one of the best Italians of his generation. That's saying something when we're talking about a man who has shared a few years of racing with riders of the stature of Vincenzo Nibali, Ivan Basso, Michele Scarponi, Damiano Cunego, Alessandro Ballan or Danilo DiLuca.
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- Yes, thank you Maria. He has a fractured skull but no pain or sequels and there should be no consequences after the small bump deflates. If anything, he is more likely to get something from the radiation he received when they “investigated” for abuse, CT scan, MRI, a dozen x-rays and he will have to have a follow up scan too. But as said, all due to childbirth, if we hadn’t noticed or worried and not taken him to emergencies, he’d have had no tests at all and instead of one to check the fracture wasn’t serious he got far more :-(Mistermaumau24-11-2024
- Obviously there is the question of enormous willpower but some injuries are extremely specific. A torn meniscus for example can function pretty well during cycling whilst making it close to impossible to go up or down stairs or walk normally.Mistermaumau24-11-2024
- First of all, I hope now all is ok with your baby!. Yeah, about to not accept foreign phone number is a big problem also for me. I have economic interests in 2 countries, I think that all can be ok with my Italian number... but NO! The world is globalized but not for bureaucracies.
maria2024202424-11-2024 - First of all, calm, this is a site to share point of views, doubts, intuitions about cycling. Let's think about it: if someone tells you that he is very tired but is going to run unimportant races immediately, ignoring a world championship much further away in time that would give him the opportunity to rest, there is something very contradictory. Maybe it is fair, but as a simple spectator I (and many others) do not understand it, it does not make sense.maria2024202424-11-2024
- I think the other side has said plenty, given comments about her reputation like what Renz said above. Perhaps this is her chance to speak up against that reputation? I have no idea but her comments seem pretty human, even if each person has their own version of the story.RidesHills24-11-2024
- Give her a team built around her with no competing leaders, like Pogacar has at UAE or Vingegaard has at Visma (seeing how Roglic left), and I wonder how Vollering would do. She’s already so good, and a team dedicated to her could make her even better.RidesHills24-11-2024
- Those injuries, an ability to manage pain and push himself, probably a load of TUEs to help him get back from an awful moment, and competing that hard without the long exercise base that was the norm - no wonder he was exhausted. We’ve now had two consecutive seasons of the second place rider having an injury that interrupts training, and it shows to what level their bodies are tuned for the insane task of winning the Tour. I certainly hope both (and their teams!) are healthy next year. It would be a first, after 4 years.RidesHills24-11-2024
- Winners seem to be like this. Win or lose, it is always on to the next thing. They don’t celebrate the big win, they don’t worry about the painful loss. They move on. It’s an amazing skill. But to be able to ride (and win) while not being able to walk? That’s a level of pain management that boggles my mind. Of course they have it, given what they put their bodies through, but it’s just crazy.RidesHills24-11-2024
- Poor Demi. But she behaves the same way when riding for the national team. Bring me my tiny violin.Renz24-11-2024
- good pointsmij24-11-2024