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Bettini says he will retire after road race Sunday

By RAF CASERT,

Updated September 27, 2008

(AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

VARESE, Italy (AP) Two-time world cycling champion Paolo Bettini said he will retire after he defends his road race title Sunday.

Bettini, also the 2004 Olympic road race champion, made the surprise announcement Saturday. He rode for the Quick-Step team and its predecessor for the last decade but failed to agree a contract extension.

"Tomorrow, I will try to be No. 1," he said, adding it "will be my last race. I have thought about this a lot."

If the 34-year-old Italian wins on Sunday, he would become the only rider to capture three straight world titles.

Bettini often excelled hilly one-day classics with an aggressive, attacking style. Small and lean at 5-foot-5, 128 pounds, he became known as "Il Grillo" ("The Cricket") in his country, where cycling is second only to soccer.

"When you make a decision like that, you hope it is the right one," he told a hastily arranged news conference. "It is very unlikely that I (will) rethink this."

When Quick-Step decided to hire Germany's Stefan Schumacher earlier this month instead of continuing the veteran's contract, a livid Bettini said he would never ride for the Belgian team again. At his age, though, few other teams were willing to take him on.

"In the past few months, a lot has happened. The idea to retire has matured," Bettini said.

He also won such major classics as Milan-San Remo, the Tour of Lombardy and Liege-Bastogne-Liege.

Last year at the world championships, German authorities unsuccessfully tried to bar him from taking part because he refused to sign an anti-doping pledge.

It fired him up to the extent that once he crossed the finish line to take the rainbow jersey, he went through the motions of taking an imaginary gun out of his pocket and firing at anyone who had crossed him.

Bettini struggled early this season with injury but has been building toward Sunday's race, winning two stages in the Spanish Vuelta.

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AP writer Eric Sylvers contributed to this article