German truck driver arrested over death of Italian cyclist Rebellin

A German truck driver has been arrested in connection with the hit-and-run collision that killed former cycling champion Davide Rebellin, the Italian prosecutor’s office said Saturday.

Italian Rebellin, 51, died instantly after being struck by a truck near his home in the Venice region in November 2022.

The driver has been arrested and placed in pre-trial detention in Muenster, northern Germany, pending a decision to hand him over to Italian authorities. 

He is accused of manslaughter and failure to assist a person in danger.

“Rebellin’s death is attributable exclusively to a combination of shortcomings on the part of the suspect in the driving of his lorry in the moments preceding the impact,” the magistrate in charge of the preliminary probe wrote in his conclusions. 

Investigators identified the driver thanks to surveillance cameras near the scene of the accident.

The accused is alleged to have cleaned the contact points with the bicycle with a “concentrated detergent”. 

Rebellin was regarded as one of the finest classics racers of his generation, winning seven of cycling’s major one-day races.

He took part in 19 Grand Tours including 12 Giro d’Italia, where he won his sole major tour stage and wore the overall leader’s pink jersey for six days in 1996.

Rebellin was stripped of his Olympic road race silver medal from the 2008 Beijing Games after returning a positive sample in re-testing months after the end of the games.