page_title: Paolo Bettini
section_title: 2004 World Cup and race season
hierarchical_section_title: Paolo Bettini / Early career / 2004 World Cup and race season
caption_attribution_description: Paolo_Bettini
context_page_description: Paolo Bettini is an Italian former champion road racing cyclist, and the former coach of the Italian national cycling team. Considered the best classics specialist of his generation, and probably one of the strongest of all times, he won gold medals in the 2004 Athens Olympics road race and in the 2006 and 2007 World Road Race Championships. He is nicknamed Il Grillo for his repeated sudden attacks and his sprinting style.
  He gained prominence by winning Liège–Bastogne–Liège in 2000 and 2002. He set the record for World Cup wins in a season in 2003, winning the Milan–San Remo, HEW Cyclassics and Clásica de San Sebastián. He won the Giro di Lombardia in 2005 and 2006, the Züri-Metzgete in 2001 and 2005 and Tirreno–Adriatico in 2004.
context_section_description: The 2004 season started well with Milan–San Remo, but Davide Rebellin won the La Flèche Wallonne (not in the World Cup), Liège–Bastogne–Liège and Amstel Gold Race.  Bettini's disappointments continued with second places in the HEW Cyclassics, which he had won previously, and in the Clásica de San Sebastián, which he had won the previous year.  The points gained in Paris–Tours put him in the leader's jersey, but with the last race the Giro di Lombardia better suited to Rebellin, the World Cup was not yet safe. Bettini followed Rebellin throughout the race, resulting in Rebellin's quitting in frustration.
  Bettini's most important victory was the 2004 Summer Olympics, where he broke away with Portuguese Sérgio Paulinho for a comfortable victory decided on a last moment sprint with both. He again failed to win the world championship due to an injury when he banged his knee against the team car at the beginning of the race.
caption: Paolo Bettini wearing the National Champion's jersey in 2004.
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