Marco Pantani

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Marco Pantani Road cycling
Pantani at the Giro d'Italia 1998.
Pantani at the Giro d'Italia 1998 .
To person
Nickname Il Pirata
Date of birth January 13, 1970
date of death February 14, 2004
nation ItalyItaly Italy
discipline Street
Driver type Mountain specialist
Team (s)
1992-1996
1997-2003 		Carrera
Mercatone Uno
Most important successes
Grands Tours
Yellow jersey Tour de France 1998
Pink jersey Giro d'Italia 1998

Marco Pantani (born January 13, 1970 in Cesena , † February 14, 2004 in Rimini ) was an Italian racing cyclist . In 1998 he won the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia . He is the last athlete to date to have won the two most important Grand Tours within one calendar year.

Pantani's aggressive riding style and attacking style made him one of the most popular cyclists of the late 1990s. With a height of 1.72 meters and a racing weight of 52 kilograms, he had perfect physical conditions for a mountain specialist.

Athletic career

Youth and first professional years

At the age of eleven, Pantani joined the GC Fausto Coppi in Cesenatico . His greatest success as an amateur came with winning the Baby Giro in 1992, after finishing third in 1990 and second in 1991.

In the same year Pantani signed his first professional contract with the Carrera Jeans -Vagabond team and achieved twelfth place in his first professional race, the Gran Premio Cittá di Camaiore . In the following year he gained his first experience on larger tours and was fifth overall in the mountain classification at the Giro del Trentino . At his first start of the Giro d'Italia he had to give up after the 18th stage.

In 1994, Marco Pantani finished the Giro del Trentino and the Giro della Toscana both in fourth place before starting the Giro d'Italia for the second time as a team member of fellow favorite Claudio Chiappucci . On the 14th stage he drove to his first victory as a professional and on the following stage he achieved his second victory. In the overall classification, Pantani took second place. He relegated Miguel Indurain to third place, Pantani was just under three minutes behind the winner Eugeni Berzin . In the same year he also started the tour , finishing it in third place, behind Indurain and Pēteris Ugrjumovs . Pantani was the best young professional and second in the mountain classification.

In the 1995 season, Pantani collided with a car while training and injured himself so that he could not start the Giro. But he drove the tour and finished it in 13th place. He was again the best young professional and won two mountain stages, the one to Alpe d'Huez and the one to Guzet-Neige . He also won a stage in the Tour de Suisse and the bronze medal at the World Championships in Duitama , Colombia , behind the Spaniards Abraham Olano and Miguel Indurain . After the world championship, he was seriously injured at the classic Milan-Turin race when he collided with a car.

Marco Pantani climbed Alpe d'Huez in 1997 with a new best time.

Career high point

After Carrera Jeans withdrew from sponsoring the team of the same name in 1996, a new professional cycling team was formed with Pantani as team captain in Italy. The Mercatone Uno team was founded by Luciano Pezzi . In addition to Pantani, ten other drivers from the former Carrera team were taken on. Pantani started in the new team at the Giro d'Italia 1997 , but fell on one of the first stages because a cat crossed the street and was eliminated early. An old injury that he suffered in 1995 broke open again. In the same year, Pantani competed in the Tour de France and won two stages in the Alps . He set a best time on the way to the summit of Alpe d'Huez and won two days later on the mountain stage to Morzine (Note: In 1997 the last 14.5 km to L`Alpe d'Huez were measured, which from 700 m Flat section and 13.8 km ascent exist. Here Pantani set a record for 14.5 km in 1997 with 37'35 "minutes. Since the actual ascent to Alpe is only 13.8 km long, this distance has been measured since 1999, and those went Pantani in 1997 in 36'53 ", but that is not his personal record. he presented 1995 36'40" on which to this day the fastest measured time of the last 13.8 km to Alpe group) . in the Overall he came in third behind Jan Ullrich and Richard Virusque .

In the 1998 season, Pantani started among the favorites for the title at the Giro . His biggest competitor Alex Zülle won the prologue and the sixth stage to Lake Laceno . Pantani decided important stages in the mountains for himself in order to be able to build up the greatest possible lead on Zülle. Pantani was able to win the pink jersey for the first time in his career on the 17th stage when he was able to outrun the other favorites on the way over the Passo Fedaia to Marmolada and thus take the lead in the overall classification. He crossed the finish line with a lead of over four minutes on Zülle and almost 30 seconds ahead of Pawel Tonkow and finished the stage in second place behind Giuseppe Guerini . On the 18th stage from Selva di Val Gardena to Alpe Ampeago, Pantani crossed the finish line at the same time as Tonkow, so there was no change in the overall result. On the following 19th stage after Plan di Montecampione, Pantani Tonkov attacked in the last kilometers and won the stage with a lead of 57 seconds and thus extended the lead in the overall classification to almost 90 seconds before the last time trial - a weakness of Pantani . On the 21st time trial stage from Mendrisio to Lugano , Pantani managed to place third and thus defend the lead in the overall standings. On the next, last stage, Pantani safely drove home his first big title. In addition to winning the overall ranking, he also won the mountain ranking and came second in the separate points table.

In the same year Pantani also won the Tour de France . On the queen's stage to Les Deux Alpes , he took 8:57 minutes from Jan Ullrich, who had been the overall leader until then. Although Pantani again lost a lot of time in the last individual time trial, which started in Montceau-les-Mines , he could not be ousted from first place until Paris.

Suspected doping

In 1999 Pantani was in the lead at the Giro d'Italia 1999 due to an increased hematocrit value after the 20th stage of the race. Immediately after sleeping at high altitudes, Pantani had an increased hematocrit value, while the value the day before was still below the limit of 50%. Pantani was then given a two-week protection ban and could not continue the race. Pantani's attorneys later stated that this high figure was the result of high altitude training in Colombia, dehydration in the race itself and severe trauma related to his 1995 accident. In addition, errors were made in drawing the blood and measuring the sample. The sports scientist Arnd Krüger explained that staying at high altitude overnight and testing the next morning before breakfast could have naturally increased the hematocrit value of Pantani by up to 4% overnight, since the blood serum represents the reserve to withstand the appropriate Loss of sweat to compensate for the loss of fluids.

Pantani, who was suspected of doping, did not take part in the 1999 Tour de France and stopped cycling for almost a year. In the same year, the Italian newspaper La Repubblica published information about targeted doping in Italian sport, including about Marco Pantani and other cyclists from his Carrera team. The sports scientist Francesco Conconi is said to have supplied the athletes with erythropoietin (EPO) as a doping agent from 1993 to 1998 . This suspicion was supported by the published hematocrit values ​​of Pantani during the seasons from 1993 to 1995. His values ​​rose from 40.7 percent on March 16 to 54.55 percent on May 23, the day on which the first stage of the Giro started. This figure peaked at 58 percent on June 8, after Pantani had won two stages of the Giro, and remained at this high level until after the Tour de France was over. In the following 1995 season, Pantani's hematocrit level fell back to 45 percent in March, and then returned to 56 percent in July during the Tour de France, after winning two stages. The highest value was over 60 percent in October 1995 after the accident near Milan-Turin. In a biological report from 2000, reference is also made to the fact that taking EPO would explain all the parameters of the samples taken in 1995. The blood iron values ​​of Pantanis at the Giro d'Italia 1999 had also exceeded the usual values ​​by a factor of five at 1200 nanograms, which is also an indication of the consumption of EPO.

In 2013 the French Senate published an investigation report, according to which Pantani was one of 18 riders whose urine samples, retested using new testing methods, tested positive for EPO at the 1998 Tour de France .

Comeback and death

Pantani only returned to cycling at the Giro d'Italia 2000 - after a brief attempt in Spain in March 2000 - . In the subsequent Tour de France 2000 he won two stages; one at the mountain arrival at Mont Ventoux and two days later the one to Courchevel . As part of a raid on the occasion of the Giro d'Italia 2001 , a syringe with insulin was found at Pantani , which resulted in a six-month ban and a fine of 3000 Swiss francs. In 2003 Pantani trained again and he took part in the Giro d'Italia . Only a fall prevented a place in the top five. After he was not invited to the Tour de France, it was announced in June 2003 that Pantani was staying in a mental hospital for the treatment of depression .

A statue in memory of Marco Pantani in Cesenatico

On February 14, 2004, Marco Pantani was found dead in a hotel room in Rimini. The suspicion that he killed himself after several empty packs of various antidepressants had been found was initially ruled out by the investigating prosecutor .

As announced by the official autopsy report on March 19, 2004 , Pantani died of a cocaine overdose . He said he spent the last days of his life completely isolated from friends and family in the hotel room where he was later found dead. Pantani's ex-girlfriend later reported in an interview with the Swiss newspaper L'Hebdo that Pantani began using cocaine after his exclusion from the Giro d'Italia in 1999 and had suffered from depressive states.

At the end of July 2014, the investigation into the deaths by the Rimini Public Prosecutor was resumed. There was suspicion of manslaughter . It investigated whether Pantani had an argument with someone who forced him to overdose on cocaine. In March 2015, the murder theory was not confirmed according to the results of a medical report from the University of Verona . The death occurred through heart failure after unauthorized ingestion of several substances. Although the public prosecutor's office, which closed the proceedings, ruled out the influence of third parties, it remained open whether Pantani was specifically seeking suicide . Appeals against this by Pantani's family were ultimately unsuccessful after the final decision of the Italian Court of Cassation in September 2017.

heritage

In memory of Marco Pantani, the Marco Pantani Memorial has been organized by his hometown of Cesenatico and his hometown of Cesena since 2004 .

successes

Awards

Grand Tour placements

Grand Tour 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
Maglia Rosa Giro d'Italia DNF 2 - - DNF 1 DNF 28 DNF DNF 14th
Yellow jersey Tour de France - 3 13 - 3 1 - DNF - - -
Golden jersey Vuelta a España - - DNF - - - - - DNF - -
Legend: DNF: did not finish , abandoned or withdrawn from the race due to timeout.

Web links

Commons : Marco Pantani  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gaul and Pantani, an Angel and a Pirate. (No longer available online.) Daily Peloton, December 12, 2005, archived from the original on August 1, 2013 ; accessed on April 6, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dailypeloton.com
  2. ↑ Pantani Story - Official biography . Fondazione Marco Pantani. 2009. Archived from the original on September 26, 2011. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 8, 2014. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.pantani.it
  3. ^ Nzz.ch of February 15, 2004: Tour and Giro winner Marco Pantani found dead
  4. ^ Mercatone Uno , cyclingnews.com. Retrieved September 7, 2007. 
  5. ^ Samuel Abt: Tour Champion Evokes Bygone Heroes in Italy . In: Sports , International Herald Tribune, August 4, 1998. Archived from the original on February 20, 2008. Retrieved July 19, 2008. "... bad luck struck him again in the Giro in June 1997, when a black cat - yes, really - crossed the road and caused a mass crash of riders trying to swerve around it. Pantani went down and was out until the Tour a month later. " 
  6. ^ Cat in Road Sparks Six-Cyclist Spill; Pantani Injured . In: The Seattle Times , May 25, 1997. 
  7. ↑ radsport-news.com from July 23, 2008: Pantani in L`Alpe d`Huez still present
  8. ↑ Climbing Records, July 2015
  9. ^ Giro d'Italia, Grand Tour. Italy, May 16 - June 7, 1998 , cyclingnews.com. Retrieved December 16, 2011. 
  10. ↑ Grand Tour Doubles - Marco Pantani , cyclesportmag.com. 
  11. ^ Stage 18 letter, Giro d'Italia, Grand Tour , cyclingnews.com. Retrieved December 16, 2013. 
  12. ^ Stage 19 letter, Giro d'Italia, Grand Tour , cyclingnews.com. Retrieved December 7, 2013. 
  13. ^ Stage 21 letter, Giro d'Italia, Grand Tour , cyclingnews.com. Retrieved December 6, 2013. 
  14. ^ Stage 22 letter, Giro d'Italia, Grand Tour , cyclingnews.com. Retrieved December 6, 2013. 
  15. ^ Pantani cleared of fraud. BBC, October 2, 2003, accessed April 6, 2014 .
  16. ↑ Pantani. Cyclingnews, October 21, 2000, accessed April 6, 2014 .
  17. ↑ on . 08/30/2016 ( Memento of 6 October 2014 Internet Archive )
  18. ↑ Cycling News and Analysis , autobus.cyclingnews.com. December 30, 1999. Retrieved May 20, 2012. 
  19. ↑ la Repubblica / sport: 'Ecco il doping di Conconi' (Italian) , Repubblica.it. Retrieved May 20, 2012. 
  20. ^ La Repubblica / sport: Anche Pantani in quel computer . Repubblica.it. Retrieved May 20, 2012.
  21. ^ John Wilcockson: Marco Pantani - The tragic story of a champion . 2005, p. 127 .
  22. ↑ cyclingnews.ocm of July 24, 2013: French Senate releases positive EPO cases from 1998 Tour de France
  23. ^ Ralf Meutgens : Doping in cycling. Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 2007, ISBN 978-3-7688-5245-6 , p. 275.
  24. ↑ Jeff Jones & Tim Maloney: Pantani dead at 34 . Cyclingnews.com. February 15, 2004. Retrieved October 8, 2010.
  25. ↑ Pantani lamented he had been left alone. theage.com.au, February 17, 2004, accessed April 6, 2014 .
  26. ^ Alasdair Fotheringham: Cycling: Pantani died of accidental cocaine overdose. March 20, 2004, accessed April 6, 2014 .
  27. ^ L'ex-fiancée du "Pirate" sort du silence. L'Hebdo, April 22, 2004, accessed April 6, 2014 (French).
  28. ↑ radsport-news.com from August 2, 2014: Rimini public prosecutor's office is investigating manslaughter
  29. ↑ radsport-news.com from March 11, 2015: Public prosecutor wants to close the case
  30. ↑ Pantani case: Court of Cassation rejects the family's objection. In: radsport-news.com. September 30, 2017, accessed September 30, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Pantani, Marco
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian cyclist
DATE OF BIRTH January 13, 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH Cesena , Italy
DATE OF DEATH February 14, 2004
Place of death Rimini , Italy