9 years ago today the champion cyclist Marco Pantani died 'alone' in a room in a hotel called The Rose in Rimini. The cause of death was a cerebral edema and heart failure. The coroner's inquest suggested acute cocaine poisoning. I wouldn't say I'm entirely convinced by the cause and manner of his death and neither apparently is his mother - but looking over the improbabilities of his death isn't what this blog is going to be about.
No boss, this is going to be all about Pantani the professional bike rider and how he beguiled me into following the sport of Professional Road Racing.
First up let's state the obvious:
Marco Pantani was a LEGEND!!!
He was a rider who ATTACKED WITH HIS HEART!!!
His riding style had PANACHE AND GUTS!!!
SOUL AND FIRE!!!
He wore no helmet, no radio, and employed no dull and earnest 5 team mates rolling a nice steady pace on the front of the bunch for the early climbs, then dropping off one by one to allow their esrtwhile capo to
grinddddddd
up the mountainside and ride everyone else off the wheel
in the process sending the viewing public to na na land....
No boss, when Pantani was riding he wasn't completing a 9 to 5 shift in a lead sheeting factory he was LOBBING A FUCKING HAND GRENADE INTO A FIREWORKS FACTORY!!!
When he felt like attacking - he'd throw off his cap or his bandana and
GO!!!
And if that attack didn't work, he'd pause for a moment then
GO AGAIN!!!
AND AGAIN!!!!
AND AGAIN!!!!!!!
Yes boss, when he had those ROCKETS and multi-coloured WHIRLS proper FLYING OFF THE ROOF!!! it was never long before his competitors gave up any hope of trying to follow...
DEATH OR GLORY!!!
FLARE!!!
EDGE!!!
Pantanis riding was the kind that got you hooked. The little bald guy with a bandana and sticky out ears, who'd come through a career threatening injury laying it all out on the mountainside, destroying his rivals and making it all look very, VERY easy...
He was an inspirational rider. A rider who made you move and want to be involved.
Yes boss, without the prospect of him riding the 1999 Tour De France, I'd have never got together the wherewithall to lay off the fags for a few weeks to cycle a knackered old touring bike the 500 miles from Southampton to the Alps, to stand on the roadside 3/4 of the way up Col Du Galibier and wait in the vain hope of catching a similar memory to him
MINCING
Jan Ullrich and the rest of the field, in absurd weather on the way to his Giro and Tour double of 1998.
But sadly Pantani never arrived at the Alps in 1999...
No boss, within days of a second consecutive win in the 1999 Giro D'Italia, he was booted from the race for running an overly high haematocrit level. In those days, such a minor sin only meant a few weeks on the sidelines, but the whole situation seemed to get Pantanis back and/or doping program up and so though he could have, he didn't make the start line of the Tour...
What was then trumpeted as a sign the STILL tedious 'war on drugs' in cycling was BEING WON!!! turned into Lance Armstrongs first of the 7 *wins - and we now know he also had the extra fuel in his tank...
In July 2000, I again made the trip to the Alps. This time on the bike to Portsmouth, then the ferry?!!? The train!?!? I can't remember exactly, other than that I cycled from Paris TERRIFIED from one station to another to board a train as far as Briancon and from there on with the bike.
I watched stage 14 over the Col D'Izzoard from the summit.
Pantani wasn't much showing.
A few days before he'd been 'gifted' the Mont Ventoux stage by Lance Armstrong. I'd watched all that unfold in a bar a few ks up the Izzoard. As the road kicked up on the Ventoux Pantani was drifting off the back 15 and more seconds behind a SUPER group containing Beloki, Armstrong, Ulrich, Botero, Heras & Tricky Dicky Virenque. He looked a good way off his best form and NAILED on for 7th place on the stage at best...!(
Then
OUT OF FUCKING NOWHERE?!?!
He crept up to the back of that leading group and then
OFF HE WENT!!!
1 time, 2 times, 4,5...
Until he got that gap...
IT WAS VINTAGE PANTANI!!!
UNFATHOMABLE!!! MOODY!!! INEXPLICABLE!??! EASY!?!?
I remember a guy going to the toilet in the midst of it. He came back and starred at the screen not understanding what had happened. When he'd left Pantani was dangling off the back
'Pantani!?!?'
'Oui...' the barman replied.
But equally unfathomable on the Ventoux was that when he felt ready and like it, Lance Armstrong nonchalantly rode on up to Pantanis wheel
and stayed there...
Pantani's collar had been felt.
LANCE WAS IN CHARGE!!!
THE BOSS HAD SPOKEN!!!
Anyway...
With no SPARKS flying on stage 14, I had to make do with buying a T-shirt and a bottle of Pantani labelled red wine from one of his many fan clubs on the summit. Feeling rather glum and underwhelmed, I drank the bottle as the race passed, then SUICIDALLY BOMBED IT back down the Col into Briancon at speeds that make me shiver to remember, loosing the empty souvenir bottle out of my panniers somewhere en route...
Pantani had seemed to be humbled.
It wasn't good.
But guess what???
He wasn't humbled.
FUCK THAT!!!
He was simply waiting for Stage 15...
Yes boss, the next day, when he rolled past on the early slopes of the opposite side of the Galibier to his epic attack of 98, he was loitering towards the back, not looking likely - bandana still on. Otxoa & Jiminez (R.I.P) were probing off the front trying to set up the early move - Pantani didn't seem interested in following it.
Marco wasn't however getting lazy, he was biding his time until the final climb into Courchevel.
Yes boss, when the final ramps went up
OFF HE WENT ONCE AGAIN!!!
Lance once again went along for the ride - for a bit, but Marco was too much for him.
UP AND UP AND UP AND UP!!!
VICTORY!!!
ALONE!!!
PROPER!!!
Now, 2 Mountain stage victories is a good return for any rider in the Tour. Pantani was seemingly too far back on the GC to win the overall and many lesser men would have simply sat at the back of the bunch taking the backslaps and cracking jokes. But apparently pissed off with Lance Armstrongs manner, charity and unpleasant goading, and still believing he could somehow win or podium the GC, the next day Pantani decided to try and PROPERLY derail the US Postal train and set himself up for GLORY!!!
AND SO OFF HE WENT ALONE ON THE FIRST CLIMB OF THE DAY!!!
DEATH OR GLORY!!!
PASSION AND FIRE!!!
FANFUCKINGTASTIC!!!
But as today of all days sometimes makes all too clear, it's not always a happy ending for the romantics...
No boss, though Lance BONKED and almost lost the Tour that day, Pantanis idyllic plan didn't win him it either. He was reeled in by the USEPO train, finished low down on the day and retired from the race the next siting stomach problems
It was the last the Tour would see of him.
R.I.P Marco Pantani
13 January 1970 – 14 February 2004
