{"id":228044,"date":"2025-10-27T11:17:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T11:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/228044\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T11:17:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T11:17:10","slug":"sonny-colbrelli-steps-down-as-bahrain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/228044\/","title":{"rendered":"Sonny Colbrelli steps down as Bahrain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former Paris-Roubaix champion <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/sonny-colbrelli\" title=\"Sonny Colbrelli\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sonny Colbrelli<\/a> is set to leave his position as sports director at <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/bahrain-victorious\" title=\"Bahrain - Victorious\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bahrain &#8211; Victorious<\/a> after a little more than three years in the role.<\/p>\n<p>Colbrelli, who had raced with Bahrain &#8211; Victorious from 2017 until his premature retirement in 2022, joined the team\u2019s management shortly after hanging up his bike. His transition from rider to sports director was seen as a natural continuation of his close ties with the squad that had defined the latter half of his racing career, with whom he got 19 out of his 34 professional wins.<\/p>\n<p>The Italian\u2019s departure comes at a moment of broader restructuring within the WorldTour team\u2019s technical staff. Enrico Gasparotto, formerly a sports director with Red Bull &#8211; Bora &#8211; hansgrohe, will take over Colbrelli\u2019s position, as reported by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gazzetta.it\/Ciclismo\/25-10-2025\/bahrain-victorious-cambi-nello-staff-tecnico-out-colbrelli-entra-gasparotto.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">La Gazzeta dello Sport<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nGasparotto spent four seasons with the German squad, which itself has also undergone major changes in its sporting department in recent months. They announced Zak Dempster as the new Chief of Sports a few days ago, in addition to <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/cycling\/for-me-this-feels-like-coming-home-former-australian-rider-returns-to-red-bull-bora-hansgrohe-as-chief-of-sports\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">other new faces<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It remains unclear whether Colbrelli will continue in a managerial capacity elsewhere in the peloton. The 2021 Paris-Roubaix winner was forced to retire early the following year after suffering a cardiac arrest at the Volta a Catalunya, which led to a diagnosis of unstable cardiac arrhythmia and ultimately ended his competitive career.<\/p>\n<p>Bahrain Victorious concluded the 2025 season ranked tenth in the UCI standings, even if they just got eight wins. <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/lenny-martinez\" title=\"Lenny Martinez\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lenny Martinez<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/santiago-buitrago\" title=\"Santiago Buitrago\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Santiago Buitrago<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/damiano-caruso\" title=\"Damiano Caruso\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Damiano Caruso<\/a> were the only three men to claim victories this season.<\/p>\n<p>Looking ahead, Bahrain Victorious appears committed to building around a blend of established and emerging talents. Among its most promising prospects is Jakob Omrzel, the 19-year-old Slovenian who won the Giro Next Gen this year. Omrzel has a contract with the team until 2029 and will be promoted to the WorldTour roster in 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Paris-Roubaix champion Sonny Colbrelli is set to leave his position as sports director at Bahrain &#8211; Victorious&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-228044","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}