Two years on from his emotional Paris-Roubaix win and one year after his heart condition emerged, Sonny Colbrelli tells A ndy McGrath how his life has changed completely
Two very different collapses define the life of Sonny Colbrelli. One is a picture of unbridled ecstasy, a muddy-faced man screaming, sobbing and laughing on the velodrome grass after becoming a Paris-Roubaix winner on debut. The other, six months on, lying on the floor, surrounded by medical staff. It’s profoundly cruel that the Italian champion’s career apogee and moment of truncation were so close together. But as Colbrelli knows, he is lucky to be here.
He collapsed after sprinting to second place on stage one of the Volta a Catalunya in March 2022. He had suffered an unstable cardiac arrhythmia. Paramedics performed CPR and used a defibrillator to save his life. After weeks in hospital, he was fitted with a subcutaneous defibrillator (ICD), a life-saving device which corrects, if required, the rhythm of the heart. He was set on returning to pro cycling. He exchanged messages with top footballer Christian Eriksen, who has a similar device and successfully returned to top-level sport after a 2020 cardiac arrest on the pitch. However, football is a contained environment, very different to cycling and Italian regulations forbid racing with an ICD. Colbrelli spent long nights repeatedly thinking about taking it out, but it was a risk too far. In November 2022, he announced his retirement.
“It’s changed my life a lot,” he tells Cycling Weekly. “It’s not easy to watch my old team-mates race, not being able to train with them at winter camp or seeing that I’m not on the list of riders or timetable for massages,” he says.
Colbrelli regrets not having had the chance to defend the European, Italian and Paris-Roubaix titles he won in 2021. “In my head, I was certain I could do two or three more years at the highest level,” he says. “Still now, watching certain races and knowing I’m not in the peloton anymore hurts a bit. But life goes on. It’s not always, as we say here in Italy, rose efiori [sunshine and roses].”
Colbrelli thinks about what happened every day, as well as what could have been. He is reminded in every interview; he has the psychological and physical scars. The grit and mental fortitude required to win a Paris-Roubaix mudfest has been employed for the gruelling task of a total life transition.
What destiny wanted
“You only get one life. I took some great wins in my career. Given what happened to me, I have to be ‘happy’ because I’m still here and can still be with my family,” he says. “This is what destiny wanted. I’m still showing my face, going to races and still part of cycling. It has given me so much – and I can still give a lot to cycling.”
He was never a racer who seemed predestined for glory. For starter
