Achille Polonara said stop: sudden decision, the champion explains why
Achille Polonara has made up his mind: his career as a professional basketball player comes to an end here, at the end of an entire year in which he could not get on the parquet floor (he was under contract with Dinamo Sassari, after his farewell to Virtus Bologna), finding himself struggling with a different kind of opponent, the long illness that debilitated him, wounded his spirit several times, but never bent him, confirming a courage that goes far beyond sports successes.
The message that appeared Monday night on social media seemed like a bolt from the blue, after days spent training in Avellino, in the facility provided by Unicusano Basket. “Thanks to coach, thanks to teammates, to the medical staffs of every team I’ve been on for making me feel like a good player but most of all a man … Thanks also to those who insulted me on social media and in the arenas, you have been my strength.”
“I wish this moment would never come. I’ve been trying, resuming individual workouts but I realize it’s time to call it quits on playing basketball because I won’t be the player I used to be and I want you to remember me for who I was! I will miss you ball to ball,” concluded Polonara, who is leaving basketball after seventeen seasons between Serie A, Spanish Liga ACB and Turkish Süper Lig, Lithuanian league and European cups, not forgetting the national team.
Achille Polonara’s long ordeal had begun in October 2023, when the now former basketball player stopped to undergo surgery to remove a testicular neoplasm, returning to the court after just two months. This time, however, the path proved infinitely longer and more tortuous. After an initial return to the field, the second blow, in June 2025: acute myeloid leukemia was the diagnosis, with the following months spent between chemotherapy and radiotherapy, culminating in a bone marrow transplant performed in September.
The complications had not stopped there: a venous thrombosis had put him in a coma for about ten days, a dramatic passage that Polonara had told Corriere della Sera without filters. “I thought: that’s enough, now I’m going to jump out of the hospital window and end it. Luckily Erika was there: you have to hold on for the family, for the children. But I felt my back was against the wall with ten behemoths holding you down. I wanted to disappear. But then I thought: it’s not fair for my children to grow up without a father, or for them to think that Dad didn’t at least try.”
In February 2026, further heart surgery, necessary to obtain competitive eligibility, had given a concrete glimmer toward a return to the field. Individual training sessions had further raised hopes, but in the aftermath of the end of the regular season of the championship (which saw, among other things, the relegation of Dinamo Sassari itself) Polonara decided to stop.
Of his career remains an enviable palmarès: championships and cups won in Italy, Spain, Turkey and Lithuania, a FIBA Europe Cup with Sassari in 2019, before that the satisfaction of a silver medal at the European Under-20 Championships in 2011. In his long adventure, he wore the undershirts of Teramo, Varese, Reggio Emilia, Sassari, Vitoria, Fenerbahce, Efes, Zalgiris Kaunas and Virtus Bologna, before his return to Sassari, which, however, did not materialize with on-court appearances.
In the national team, Polonara played 94 games between 2012 and 2024, scoring a total of 596 points. He participated in the 2015 and 2022 European Championships, the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games (played the following summer due to Covid) and the 2023 World Championships with the Azzurri jersey. His best game in terms of scoring with the national team was the historic 102-95 win against Serbia that guaranteed Italy access to the 2020 Games: 22 points scored by PolonAir, one of the nicknames most used by insiders.
