A World Championship in his last ever race: not a bad way to go.
In 2006, a 17-year-old Italian called Elia Viviani rolled onto the boards at the European Track Championships, held in Athens, and announced his arrival to the world of track cycling. In the scratch race – a discipline in which first over the line wins – Viviani outlasted his competitors and set up an imposing run of results on the velodrome that would last for almost two decades. Medals and jerseys would keep on flowing at Italian championships, European championships, world championships.
By 2012, he was a senior, and the results on the track didn’t slow. But as the years ticked on there were other priorities – other races to compete in, other formats to try to make a mark on. After a four-year stint with the Italian road team Liquigas-Doimo (2010-2014), Viviani sought a new way to balance the demands of track cycling and road cycling. The Rio Olympics were on the horizon in 2016 and from 2015-2017 Team Sky offered him the freedom to pursue the breadth of his ambitions. He repaid them with his debut Grand Tour stage win at the 2015 Giro, rolled into Rio with endurance in his legs, and gave Italy a gold medal in the omnium.
For the entirety of his 16-year pro road career, Viviani has straddled the divide between being a top track rider and one of road cycling’s faster sprinters. For many cycling fans, it’s just the latter that they’ll associate with him – a career of 90 wins, nine Grand Tour stage wins spread across all three, a European road championship and a national road championship among them. He’s ridden for many of the sport’s biggest teams – three seasons at Sky, two at Quick Step, a couple at Cofidis before returning to the former Team Sky (now Ineos Grenadiers), and finally closing his career at Lotto.
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