[Video] Achille Polonara Returns to the Court After Leukemia

Touching a basketball again felt like starting over for Achille Polonara.

Ten months removed from the game — and nine months after a myeloid leukemia diagnosis that stopped everything — the 34-year-old stepped back onto the floor at PalaSerradimigni. Just being there, in a Dinamo gym again, carries weight.

The path to get here is almost hard to process.

After already beating testicular cancer in 2023, Polonara went through chemotherapy, a bone marrow transplant, and heart surgery to close a defect. And now, there he is again — a ball in his hands, shots going up — in a moment that resonates far beyond basketball.

Achille Polonara di nuovo con le scarpette da gioco e il pallone in mano: il cestista della Dinamo Sassari ha infatti postato un breve video nelle storie del suo profilo Instagram col quale racconta il suo ritorno sul parquet. Un paio di tiri a canestro, sul campo di Sassari, e… pic.twitter.com/E9jiagEPun

— La Stampa (@LaStampa) March 30, 2026

« Exciting and Beautiful »: First Feelings of the Return

In a conversation with Davide Romani of La Gazzetta dello Sport, Achille Polonara tried to put words to something that’s hard to explain.

“Getting the ball back in my hands after ten months was exciting… beautiful,” he said. “At first it felt like the first time I ever played, but shot after shot, the feeling started to come back.”

It’s a milestone — but not a finish line.

For now, Polonara is staying patient, sticking to individual work and avoiding contact. “I have to be careful,” he said. “Team contact will come after the summer.” The timeline is deliberate, shaped as much by caution as by ambition.

There’s still a longer battle happening underneath.

He recently traveled to Valencia to begin an experimental drug protocol aimed at reducing relapse risk — a process that could take two to three years to fully clear. “It’s long,” he admitted. “You need time to be sure.”

In the meantime, he’s used the pause differently.

Polonara worked on his biography — Il mio secondo tempo, written with Marco Garavaglia — a way to process everything while stepping away from the court. And even now, still under contract with Dinamo Sassari, he stays connected, watching closely, still invested.

“Staying up is achievable,” he said of the team’s push to close the season. “We have to treat every game like a final.”

For him, though, the bigger picture is already clear: he’s back in the gym — and that alone means everything.