Pantani, a man always alone: when he won and when he derailed.
He wasn’t an angel nor a devil: he came from an antique cycling, spoke a different language, on the frame of his bike was all of Italy.
Ten years ago the mysterious death. By Gianni Mura
Ten years without Pantani, a story of triumph and downfall.
It’s already been ten years, but you’re still here to exalt a drug addict? Or else: but haven’t you understood that he was the sacrificial lamb? Ten years after his death, Pantani continues to divide, like ten days after the fact. Only when he raced and won everybody made him their own. I don’t recognize myself in either of the two factions, that of the devil or that of the angle. Too extreme, in a certain sense too convenient.
It would be better to reconcile them: even devils have positive aspects, even angels don’t always resist temptations and, consequently, for this Pantini was consummately human. A man alone at the helm when he dropped everybody on the climb. A man alone on a crash course after Madonna di Campiglio. The long, painful descent to the bottom in which he was no longer able to distinguish between true friends and false ones, those that worry about your unhappiness and those that cover you with white dust and paid-for women.
I rather recognize my view in a book that has just come out (“Pantani was a God”) written by Marco Pastonesi, a colleague from la Gazzetta dello Sport whose first love is rugby, but as regards cycling can stay on the wheels of the great suiveurs of the pink daily. He is one who knows how to observe and listen, Pastonesi, and he’s also honest. The first lines of the preface: “Pantani wasn’t one of my favorites. No champion, no winner, however victorious, is one of my preferred. Mine are the racers that, as professionals, haven’t even won once.” Thus not Pantani.
Over the past ten years many books about the life and death of Pantani were published, written by Italian as well as foreign journalists, by his manager and even his mother Tonina. In addition a made for television film and a long, painful and most humane play at the Teatro delle Albe di Ravenna (romagnoli like him) were produced, as well as a dozen songs…not to mention the solemn parades and the blogs on the Cesenatico cemetery where he is buried. Then there are the those on the climbing feats of Pantani: like the domestic ones such as the beloved Carpegna, the Centoforche and the Fumaiolo; or the more famous Mortirolo, Alpe d’Huez, Galibier and Ventoux. Because of how he raced, I can say that all the climbs were Pantani’s. They were his natural turf, his vertical sea, they were both his crosses to bear and delicacies to savor. The cross was the one called agony, the hardest fatigue. The delights were his attacking the group from the back and then, bit by bit, passing everyone while looking at their faces. He did it on purpose, not by chance. Nor was it by chance that he got rid of any excess baggage before attacking, for it was a warning. Like the tolls of death bells: now I’m going to get serious, follow me if you dare. And it wasn’t a random case, either, that Pastonesi completes the picture by recounting the words of all his domestiques, of those who trained and raced with him, or rather for him (because Mercatoni Uno contemplated only one leader, Pantani, and all the others at the service of the cause). If Pantani won, everybody did. Whereas if he lost, everyone did. In the details of the picture there are great romagnoli cyclists of old and great climbers like Gaul, Bahamontes, Massignan, just as the first great climber, René Pottier, winner of the 1906 Tour, who hung himself from a beam of a Peugeot garage on January 25, 1907. A love loss, they said at the time. No letter was left, another mysterious death.
Like Pantani’s death, which has two big question marks in two hotel rooms. One is that of Madonna di Campiglio, June 5, 1999, the beginning of the end. How on earth, given that it was an announced drug test, did Pantani’s blood show a hematocrit of 52 (when it would have been easy for him, given the forewarning, to lower it had he needed to)? And what really took place in room D5 of the Le Rose residence at Rimini, just the final end of it all? Philippe Brunel’s book, by the l’Equipe journalist, has documented how many grey areas and lacunas there were in the police investigation. Doubts remain, while that residence no longer exists, having been demolished as it was soon thereafter, which is surprising given our bureaucracy.
Yet the doubts don’t remain among those who only speak of Panatini as a drug addict, both on and off the bike, or else merely as a fallen angel. To relive those years between the end of the 80’s and the first years of the 2000’s, is like following the course of EPO. Did Pantani use it? Yes, like everyone else. How much? Pastonesi cites rather high levels. Would he have won otherwise? Yes, if all were on the same fuel. Yet, since Pantani’s death, it has come out that in regards to someone (Armstrong) the UCI kept open a huge umbrella.
Honestly, just as Pastonesi has written that Pantani wasn’t one of his favorites, I must admit that he was one of mine. Because, like the cyclists of old, during the race he went on instinct. He didn’t use a heart rate monitor and when he trained at home he road on bread and pecorino. Because, even more than the victories, I remember the expectation that he could win, or in any case that he would eventually, at some point, go on the attack and in this he never disappointed. But also the enthusiasm of the fans, like a sonorous ovation from switchback to switchback. To say nothing of the whole of Italy on his frame, and the French who got pi$$ed-off, though not entirely, since they liked to listen to Charlie Parker.
Because he was an artist. Because he was so small. Because he spoke a different language. Pastonesi called me from the office that February 14, 2004. I was on vacation and at lunch in Florence. Pantani’s dead. Nobody knows exactly how, but in a residence. I need a crocodile, fast. Taxi, hotel, television breaking news, details. I still have readers who tell me that that article written in the heat of the moment about Pantani’s death, was among the most beautiful that I ever wrote. I would never have wanted to write it. It just came out like that: like turning on a faucet or cutting a vein.
He WAS completely forgotten until his unexpected death gave him media attention again. "Better to burn out than to fade away."
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