Traeen, from cancer scare to Vuelta red in three years
It was turning out to be a very positive year for Torstein Traeen. Wearing the Uno-X Pro Cycling Team jersey, he had finished ninth in the Vuelta a Catalunya and won the mountains classification of the Tour of the Alps, achieving some of the best results of his career in the first half of 2022. In May, however, everything seemed to come to a standstill.
About three weeks after finishing his participation in the Tour des Alpes, where he underwent several doping tests, Torstein Traeen received the call no one wants: the blood samples he submitted detected very high levels of hCG, a leading indicator of cancer in males. "You may be seriously ill," the doctor who contacted him told him.
???????????? Everyone aboard the Torstein train! ❤️
❤️ The new PATRÓN ???? #LaVuelta25 pic.twitter.com/GsUGFb1vOj
— La Vuelta (@lavuelta) August 28, 2025
???? WE HAVE A NEW RACE LEADER!
????????? @Torsteintren – @BHRVictorious
❤️ WE HAVE A NEW LEADER! #LaVuelta25 pic.twitter.com/hAOn9DKPk5
— La Vuelta (@lavuelta) August 28, 2025
"It was Friday the 13th, and I had even joked that something bad was going to happen. At first, I thought it didn't even make sense, but then they explained everything and said I might have testicular cancer," the Norwegian cyclist explained a few months later. He underwent surgery to remove a testicle, and subsequent biopsies found a 15-millimeter tumor, but subsequent tests confirmed that the cancer hadn't spread—therefore, Torstein Traeen didn't need chemotherapy.
"It was very small, they caught it very early. A week after surgery, all the hCG had already disappeared from my blood," said the cyclist, who revealed the entire scare in a social media post. "99 problems, and cancer is no longer one of them. Jokes aside, it's been a crazy few months since being diagnosed with testicular cancer. Fortunately, the surgery went well, and I'm finally back on my bike. I can't wait to be back on the road full throttle very soon," he wrote in a caption accompanying several hospital photos.
In August, three months after the call-up that put a lifetime on hold , Torstein Traeen was back in competition. He finished third at the Tour de Langkawi and seventh at the CRO Race, making his Tour debut the following year— finishing the race despite a crash in the first stage that fractured his elbow. In 2024, after nine seasons with the Uno-X Pro Cycling Team, he moved to UCI WorldTeam Team Bahrain Victorious and achieved his first career victory by winning the fourth stage of the Tour de Suisse.
After this Thursday, however, Torstein Traeen will have to change his answer when asked about the best moment of his professional life. At 30, the cyclist from Hønefoss, Norway, climbed to the top of the Vuelta general classification and became the competition's new red jersey: he crossed the finish line in second place on the sixth stage, in the mountain finish in Pal, just behind Jay Vine, and now holds a 31-second lead over Frenchman Bruno Armirail and a 1-minute and 1-second lead over Italian Lorenzo Fortunato.
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