Domenico Pozzovivo to retire after Il Lombardia: "To continue would be like asking for trouble"
Cycling
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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