Former Paris-Roubaix champion Sonny Colbrelli is set to leave his position as sports director at Bahrain - Victorious after a little more than three years in the role.
Colbrelli, who had raced with Bahrain - Victorious from 2017 until his premature retirement in 2022, joined the team’s management shortly after hanging up his bike. His transition from rider to sports director was seen as a natural continuation of his close ties with the squad that had defined the latter half of his racing career, with whom he got 19 out of his 34 professional wins.
The Italian’s departure comes at a moment of broader restructuring within the WorldTour team’s technical staff. Enrico Gasparotto, formerly a sports director with Red Bull - Bora - hansgrohe, will take over Colbrelli’s position, as reported by La Gazzeta dello Sport.
Gasparotto spent four seasons with the German squad, which itself has also undergone major changes in its sporting department in recent months. They announced Zak Dempster as the new Chief of Sports a few days ago, in addition to other new faces.
It remains unclear whether Colbrelli will continue in a managerial capacity elsewhere in the peloton. The 2021 Paris-Roubaix winner was forced to retire early the following year after suffering a cardiac arrest at the Volta a Catalunya, which led to a diagnosis of unstable cardiac arrhythmia and ultimately ended his competitive career.
Bahrain Victorious concluded the 2025 season ranked tenth in the UCI standings, even if they just got eight wins. Lenny Martinez, Santiago Buitrago and Damiano Caruso were the only three men to claim victories this season.
Looking ahead, Bahrain Victorious appears committed to building around a blend of established and emerging talents. Among its most promising prospects is Jakob Omrzel, the 19-year-old Slovenian who won the Giro Next Gen this year. Omrzel has a contract with the team until 2029 and will be promoted to the WorldTour roster in 2026.
Félix SernaCycling Journalist
Félix Serna is a writer at CyclingUpToDate and has been part of the team since 2025. He covers professional cycling across both the men’s and women’s calendars, with a focus on UCI rankings, race developments, and rider performance. His work includes interview-based reports, liveblogs, and tournament coverage designed to provide clear, accurate context throughout the season.
In his reporting, Félix regularly uses ProCyclingStats for results, statistics, and historical reference. He places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles promptly when new, verified information becomes available. He holds a bachelor’s degree in International Studies.
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- You can clearly see the the posture change from slightly sitting to again out of the saddle while changing of gears in the video of the sprintabstractengineer08-11-2026
- He has already beaten Pogi twice in the TDF. the achievement is over. He cannot beat Pogi now and he only has a few years left at the top. Win Giro and compete in the TDF, maximise palmares.abstractengineer08-11-2026
- Just looked again at the photo. Yeah I stand by that. If MS had fallen over in Brands direction I don’t even think she would have hit her. You must be a UCI race commissioner. I’ll be sure to check my sock height should I ever see you on a ride. Looks like everyone else on here sees what I see.mij08-11-2026
- I said looking at the photo it doesn’t appear she deviated. Chill out, not stating my word is the final judgement. Just commenting that based on the photo I don’t see it. And BTW the Dutch coach even said she didn’t impede her.mij08-11-2026
- Blah Blah Blah !frieders308-11-2026
- MS said she was changing gears so that caused her slight deviation. Nothing was intentional.frieders308-11-2026
- How can you use a photo post incident to judge the incident itself (which is not hard to find if you’re prepared to invest the same amount of time in searching as writing that comment? It’s harsh but technically right even though this or worse is not always sanctioned in every race. The two things that went against MS (who unfortunately for her would still have won without making her mistake) are that it was not a bunch sprint where there could have been an overlooked incident or mitigating circumstances explaining a deviation. Everything was focused on just those 2, Schreiber was riding beautifully balanced which made her sudden deviation look unnatural stroke as if it could have been in some part intentional whilst she was slowly drifting ever closer towards the barrier to a point that would have reached obstruction level. In her defence, it might have been the realisation she was heading towards that that made her react suddenly and caused the deviation involuntarily. In any case, congratulations to her for the ride of her life, in people’s minds she will be credited for it.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- Good boy Obviously doesn’t need that much help dealing with pressure, as some have suggested. Wiser (and humbler) than many far further along their careers. About offering him the moon, recently someone came up with an explanation of the downfall of a football great (either referring to Maradona or Portuguese Ronaldo) saying it was kind of normal after coming back from the moon, except that others, including some who actually did go to the moon like Armstrong (Neil in case anyone is too switched off to realise) didn’t go through any of the same motions after coming back. A lot of how you deal with situations has less to do with the situation than with your character.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- I think that they're not really used to dealing with this type of incident in a cyclocross race, and the situation has been magnified because it was a race for a championship title. It's very unfortunate that the race had to be decided in this way.
santiagobenites07-11-2026 - Seriously why do they keep doing stupid things like this. Its one thing to relegate when the placings are minor, when the action is blatant. But when it is ambiguous, why dont they at least take advice from some higher up to avoid embarrassing themselves. This is similar to the Halland goal when his teammate was clearly offside and interfered in play and VAR gave them the goal. if you dont have evidence you cannot convict. Even for doping they have these rulesabstractengineer07-11-2026
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