“He didn’t look like an Italian, he didn’t like to brag”

“Why am I walking so fast through the mountains? To reduce the agony…” He answered with this sincere phrase Marco Pantani (Cesena, 1970) famous Italian journalist Gianni Mura after his next mountain exhibition.

The Giro d’Italia used the slogan Boundless love for Marco. A good resume for a character who made fans dream every time his light frame – 1.72 meters and 57 kilograms – soared from the asphalt to the most prestigious peaks of cycling, like the time he won the Alpe d’Huez Tour 1997. In addition to winning the Giro and the Tour (1998), he finished on the podium three more times at these two tournaments, and also won bronze at the World Championships in Colombia.

“I think this is the most head-to-head duel I’ve ever had with him. He was a racer who always gave his all. He was low-key, he was always with his team, taking care of his own business. I don’t agree with the age either, but it’s clear that he was an interesting cyclist from the very beginning.”– Mige Indurain, with whom he competed on the asphalt, told MARCA. The one who knows him well, because they took the step into the professionals together, is Stefano Garzelli.

“He was gigantic. But I am the only one who can boast that for several days he worked for me as a herd man,” says the transalpine man with pleasure, admitting that Marco himself “He was more confident than me that he would win the 2000 Giro.”. Together they have a thousand anecdotes, but the Italian highlights one in which El Pirata fell because of Stefano: “He told me why he didn’t go slower.” For him, there were things that only Pantani could do, “the way he climbed with his hands on the handlebars, or knocked Armstrong off balance, as he did on Mont Ventoux.”

TO Garzelli, who now lives in Valencia, is not surprised that those who do not know him still encourage him to train on the road with the help of “Vamos Pantani”. This shows that Marco’s figure “known throughout the world, and that it was he, together with other protagonists such as Coppi, Rossi, Maldini… who wrote history in Italy.”

The other two who can describe it are Spaniards. Igor Astarloa and Dani Clavero, which coincided with it in Mercato. As for the Basque, “he didn’t look Italian because he was very shy and didn’t show off or attract attention. The fact is that he did it because of his special physique and cycling skills.” He enjoyed “training, focusing and going out in the off-season which was a lot of fun” with him, which is why he has a hard time coming to terms with how his result was. For Keychain“probably the best mountaineer of all time” due to the ease with which he climbed mountains.

Farewell between suspicions

A year after his double, on June 5, 1999, 10 runners underwent anti-doping tests, as a result of which Marco gave illegal values. He had to abandon the Giro, although Astarloa remembers the existing hypotheses about this farewell. “some of those who say it happened because of gambling, others because of the sponsor…” The truth is that this was the beginning of the end. Then, after his death in 2004, all sorts of suspicions arose about his death in that hotel in Rimini.

“Marco was not alone on the night of his death, he had two bodyguards with him,” his mother said. Tonina before the carabinieri of the investigative unit of the operational department of Rimini. The conclusion that it was not murder but drug use will never be accepted by some of his family members or followers.

In the case of his death, which is still not closed, there is no absolute certainty. Pantaniinvincible in the mountains and fragile in everyday life, ultimately dying from too much life on Valentine’s Day in 2004. Now, two decades later, his legacy remains timeless and his figure indelible.