Italian rider Davide Rebellin has this week announced that at the age of 44 he has signed with CCC-Sprandi-Polkowice for another season. It will be his 24th year as a professional rider. That got us to thinking: just how old can a pro racer be these days?
Here are five pros who have raced well into their 40s.
1. Davide Rebellin
Rebellin turned 44 years old back in August. It’s over a decade since he won Amstel Gold, La Flèche Wallonne and Liège–Bastogne–Liège in the same season, and next year will be the 20th anniversary of his sole Giro d’Italia stage win. Of course, the two-year sabbatical he had after testing positive for EPO after winning Olympic silver in Beijing may have put a new spring in his step.
2. Chris Horner
© Unipublic-Graham Watson
US rider Chris Horner is just a couple of months younger than Davide Rebellin (above); he’s 44 too. Horner won the Vuelta a España in 2013 at the age of 41, becoming the oldest ever winner of a grand tour. He is reportedly hoping to continue racing next year with American UCI Continental team Airgas-Safeway, although no deal is yet in place.
3. Jens Voigt
©Maxime Schmid
German rider Jens Voigt, everyone’s favourite super-domestique, finally retired at the end of the 2014 race season, just days short of his 43rd birthday. Voigt competed at the very highest level until the end of his career, competing in the Tour de France for the 17th consecutive year in his final season of racing. He signed off by taking the World Hour Record on the track.
4. Matteo Tosatto
The oldest rider on a UCI WorldTeam in 2015 was Matteo Tosatto of Tinkoff-Saxo. He finished the season aged 41 having raced both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France. Tosatto first raced the Tour way back in 1997 and he won a stage of the Giro d’Italia in 2001. He will continue riding for Tinkoff-Saxo in 2016.
“One year more or one year less doesn't make much of a difference physically, it's your head that dictates your state,” said Tosatto after renewing his contract.
5. Lex Nederlof
All of this lot (above) are young whippersnappers compared to Lex Nederlof of the UCI Continental CCN Cycling Team based in Laos. How old? 49. Nederlof was born in 1966, a month before the England football team won the World Cup.
What do you reckon? Are you getting better with age? Or is your cycling ability tailing off?
I read that Steve Baker wants to pull the plug on all 'green' policies if he gets in, on the justification that climate change and stuff really...
"This week Labour revealed that, according to figures from the Department for Transport, between January 2017 and December 2021 there were only 242...
Riders with wheels on the edge of the cobbles (on the cobbles none the less) and spectator filming riders that had already passed whilst leaning...
Had a gardener round to tidy up and he got my old bike out from the undergrowth. It's over 30yrs old but I think it'll buff up ......🤔
He can, as you say, climb when needs be on any given day, but to climb like a Tour winner he would have to drop from his current 78kg to something...
Great to see electronic shifting will soon be availiable for the everyman's groupset - 105 - but i'll stick to the tried and true mechnical...
I'd give half an arm for some semi-humerous articles today. Well, maybe 1/4 of one.
A couple we've seen already this tour:...
I noticed Viagra was being advertised during the TdF highlights on ITV4 last night too!
Why did the Beeb decide to blank out their [his] numberplate?...