Davide Rebellin died in a traffic accident. © AFP / ERIC FEFERBERG

Rebel death: accused driver in critical condition

A German truck driver accused in Italy after the fatal traffic accident of ex-professional cyclist Davide Rebellin is in a hospital in Treviso after suffering a stroke on Monday night.

27 Maj 2024

From: dpa/det

His condition is critical, as the Italian media consistently reported. Another court hearing in the trial against the truck driver should have taken place this Monday in a court in Vicenza. The process was suspended.

The man rammed Rebellin with his vehicle on November 30, 2022 in the municipality of Montebello Vicentino (Veneto region) and then committed a hit-and-run. He turned himself in to the authorities seven months later and was imprisoned in the Vicenza penitentiary. Until now he had been under house arrest in an apartment with friends in the province of Treviso. The Rebellin family was compensated with 825.000 euros through insurance.

Hit and run after accident

The athlete, who had recently ended his professional career, was on a training trip. According to police, evaluations of surveillance cameras, witness statements and joint investigations with authorities in Austria, Slovenia and Germany have shown that the truck driver was involved in the accident. It was also found that the man got out after the accident, approached the rebel lying on the ground, but then drove away. He is now accused of causing death in traffic and failing to provide assistance.

Rebellin was a specialist in one-day races and won the Amstel Gold Race, Fleche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège classics within a week in 2004. In 1996 he also won a stage of the Giro d'Italia. He later made negative headlines when he was stripped of his Olympic silver medal in Beijing in 2008 because of doping.