"He attacked me, grabbing me by the neck" - Italian cyclist Luca Colnaghi suffers violent assault after training ride

Italian cyclist Luca Colnaghi has revealed that he was the victim of a violent assault following a training ride, describing the ordeal as something out of a movie scene.

"It was all so absurd that if I hadn't experienced it first hand, I would think it was a scene from a movie. Instead, in the early afternoon yesterday when I was between Lierna and Varenna with my brother Andrea, unfortunately, on our way we crossed paths with a guy on a motorbike looking for trouble.

“He pulled up alongside me, insulted me, and put his bike in the way to force me to stop," Colnaghi told Tuttobiciweb.

The 26-year-old from Lecco explained that he and his brother tried to defuse the situation, but the motorcyclist escalated matters.

"When I found myself face to face with him, we tried to calm him down, to tell him to stop, that we had no desire to argue, but he pushed me and made me fall," he said. "He attacked me, grabbing me by the neck. Luckily, my brother and I managed to block him and make him go away.

“He tried to intimidate us again by going back the wrong way as if he was going to crash into us head-on, but it seemed like it was over there."

However, the incident took an even darker turn when Colnaghi later returned to the scene alone to look for his lost headphones.

"When I got home I realized I had lost the headphones I had in my shirt pocket, so I went back to look for them, making the mistake of showing up alone. Unfortunately, the individual, who I later discovered was already known to the police, returned with another foreigner like him on the motorcycle.

“First, they grazed me to make me fall, then when I was running away, the passenger took a rock from the road and threw it at my rear wheel. Not content with that, they came at me with the motorcycle, blocking me on the wall at the edge of the road, the parapet that separates the road from Lake Como."

Colnaghi described how the attack escalated further, leaving him injured before help arrived.

"I had already hurt myself on impact, but as if that wasn't enough, these two individuals left the motorcycle to take me from behind and punch me in the face. When I managed to free myself, the odometer alarm had already alerted my dad, who reached me at the scene of the incident even before the rescue and the police, who despite the excitement of the moment, I had had the lucidity to call."

Following the attack, Federico Balconi, a lawyer for the Association of Italian Professional Cyclists, has confirmed that the assailants will face serious charges.

"Luca Colnaghi's attackers, following the investigation activities that we requested through the complaint, will have to answer for serious crimes such as voluntary injuries, assault, threats... with the aggravating circumstance of futile motives and complicity between them.

"We hope that the Prosecutor's Office will rigorously carry out all the necessary activities to guarantee Luca and all the cyclists in the area the safety and defense from these dangerous individuals."

Despite the trauma of the incident, Colnaghi also expressed disappointment at the lack of intervention from bystanders.

"Having been explicitly threatened not to contact the police or they would come and get me, not light heartedly," he explained. "I was very saddened to find that, despite me having openly asked for help, no motorist stopped. Only an amateur cyclist who witnessed the whole scene, when I was in the ambulance receiving the necessary medical treatment, offered to be my witness."

Colnaghi, who has trained on these roads since childhood, now feels a heightened sense of caution but remains hopeful that justice will be served.

"I have been training on these roads since I was a child. Today cycling is my job, I wear a very recognizable uniform, and the probability of finding these characters is a given. I will go out on my bike with 25 more eyes open, but I hope they will not do anything else to harm me or anyone else. I believe in justice, and I hope the authorities do their duty; otherwise, in Italy, how is one supposed to defend themselves?"