"I'm here in the hospital, resting, I don't remember anything ... Only that I crossed the line, I stopped, I took the water and I collapsed. Then the emptiness, and I woke up in the hospital. Now I'm here , they keep me monitored. It was a great scare, but I am already thinking about when I will be able to return to the group. "

These are the first words spoken by Sonny Colbrelli in a voice message to the press and published this morning by the Gazzetta dello Sport. The rider from Brescia is still hospitalized in Girona after the illness that hit him yesterday at the end of the first stage of the Volta Catalunya.

"Colbrelli will undergo further tests to find out the cause of the accident - his team, the Bahrain Victorius explained in a note - all the cardiac tests carried out last night did not show any signs of concern or compromised functions. Further updates will follow."

The anguish of the first moments is giving way to a veiled optimism, even if the reasons for the fainting, and the consequent cardiac arrest, and the possible consequences for his career remain to be understood.

Newspapers around the world have obviously published the news with some detail.

“The terrible anguish”, is the title of the Equipe for the rider who won the last Roubaix. Gianni Marcarini, a former professional runner, his friend, now a fabric seller, offers his testimony to the French newspaper: «I approached him to congratulate him. He was still sitting on the bicycle frame and his eyes were blank. Suddenly he collapsed and dragged me down with him. I had time to remove the stuck foot and it started having seizures. I thought about a violent seizure. His whole body trembled and then nothing. Rescuers arrived quickly. I saw they were starting to do heart massages before quickly returning with a defibrillator. They also gave him an injection with a syringe before placing a large sheet in front. It's crazy. I know Sonny well and the scene scared me. Above all because it was hospitalized in an ambulance and remained stationary for at least twenty minutes before leaving ».

The French newspaper speaks of “a frankly violent final sprint. Long ahead, Colbrelli gave up only in the last few meters ”. At the beginning of March, Colbrelli had had bad bronchitis, had withdrawn from the Paris-Nice and had missed the Milan-Sanremo. He had undergone a course of antibiotics and was back in the running in Catalonia so as not to lose his condition in view of the Classics in the North.

Andrea Schiavon on Tuttosport writes that "for Sonny these should have been days to live with pride: in conjunction with the participation in the Tour of Flanders (April 3), the release of Con il cuore nel fango, the book written with Marco Pastonesi to tell his story as a runner who passed through the shifts in the factory before reaching professionalism. The first hypothesis formulated is that of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle ".

There is another key passage in Schiavon's chronicle: "Certainly what happened to Colbrelli worries many runners, including those struggling with the after-effects of the covid and those still marked by bronchitis that decimated the group at Paris-Nice, where only 59 of the 154 starters arrived as far as the Côte d'Azur. On the part of everyone there is a desire to clarify: why a runner who was sprinting covered in mud five months ago inside the Roubaix velodrome is now forced to ask himself how he will continue his career? ".

© Photo Spring Cycling

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