Achille Polonara breaks silence and shuts down controversy

Achille Polonara breaks his silence and does so with a message posted on Instagram. “I would like to shed some light on what I have read in recent days on social media,” he writes. I am not at training in Sassari simply for travel reasons given my last upcoming medical exams. My goal is to return as soon as possible.”

“For the last few weeks I have been in Battipaglia and the Avellino Basket club has made itself available for me to train individually. Forza Dinamo Sassari: all together united for an important goal,” adds the athlete from Marche.

A message that comes after a long and very hard journey. The long ordeal for the Dinamo Sassari player had begun in 2025 when he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. The Ancona winger had to go through a treatment that was not easy, culminating in a bone marrow transplant performed in September, with subsequent complications – including a blood clot that put him in a coma for five days – that made recovery even more complex.

In February came another step on the path to a return to the court: heart surgery, necessary to obtain competitive eligibility, which Polonara himself had successfully announced with a message on Instagram. “I will have another minor heart surgery that will give me competitive eligibility, so I hope then to be able to return to the court soon, and this is very heartening for me,” the player had said, emphasizing how signing with Sassari had transformed his goal: no longer just to return to health, but also to return to the parquet, to repay the trust of President Sardara and the entire club.

By the end of March, Polonara had already taken the ball back in his hands, with his first individual workouts moving him: “Taking the ball back in my hands after ten months was exciting. At first it felt like a first experience, but shot after shot the feeling came back,” he had told Gazzetta dello Sport. Still individual work, focused on the physical component, with the goal of avoiding trauma and contact while waiting to be able to join the team.

During the stop, Polonara also published his autobiography, “My second half: a basketball story, a life story,” written with Marco Garavaglia. “Telling my story was an idea I had for the end of my career, but I decided to do it now, during this stop. In the hospital this summer, I started writing it. I’m not thinking about basketball but about life, because I’m playing the most important game off the court,” explained the player, who has also started an experimental therapy in Valencia to reduce the risk of relapse-a long path, for which it will still take two or three years to have certainty.

Born Nov. 23, 1991, Polonara has worn the undershirts of Stamura Ancona, Teramo, Varese, Reggio Emilia, Sassari, Baskonia, Fenerbahce, Efes, Zalgiris and Virtus Bologna in his career before re-signing with Dinamo. He also boasts 94 appearances with the national team, of which he was symbolically named captain during last November’s world qualifiers, in a gesture of closeness from coach Luca Banchi and the entire Federbasket.