Marco Pantani was one of the greatest pure climbers cycling has ever known, and one of the most emotionally fragile. Marco Pantani could sprint up mountain passes like an angel, with repeated attacks that would drop great Tour de France champions, Miguel Indurain, Lance Armstrong, and Jan Ullrich like hot stones. Marco Pantani was the last rider to win the Giro d' Italia/Tour de France double in 1998. A feat "Lance Armstrong never attempted."
The film is a biographical masterpiece. Marco Pantani loved his bicycle as a youth, he assembled and disassembled his bicycle repeatedly in order to make it "lighter and faster." Pantani would be heard late at night adjusting his cleats, "backward and forward two centimeters at a time" attempting to find the perfect adjustment; a habit ingrained in all great professional cyclists. His mother scolded him for giving his bicycle washes in the bathtub.
When Marco Pantani turned professional he wanted to quit because he thought professional cycling was equivalent to "the mafia." A very insightful precept. In the mafia as a made guy, you play by the rules and maintain omerta, or silence about the family.
In the family of professional cycling, millions of euros are cycled in sponsorship money, and millions more can be earned by a professional rider in commercial endorsements contingent upon performance. Everybody plays by the same rules. Everyone knows if you are successful you will be handsomely rewarded, but if you are caught cheating you will be thrown to the wolves to fend for yourself. The big money players walk free. A dead soldier can be replaced instantly without a qualm, but the family survives unimpeded.
But Marco Pantani was an impulsive man. Marco Pantani was warned to share the wealth during the 1999 Giro d' Italia, to refrain from attacking the group, to allow other teams to win stages. But Marco Pantani was a driven man who wanted to be immortal, like Fausto Coppi. Marco Pantani wanted to humiliate his opponents, to dominate races with huge time gaps. According to the film, the family sought a way to remove Marco Pantani from contention because he refused to share the wealth with other big money players. There were also suggestions big money gamblers were out to fix the 1999 Giro d' Italia! What better way to guarantee a big payoff than to manufacture a positive dope test that would disqualify the odds on favorite?
Suppositions, conspiracy theories. There have been reports circulated that Marco Pantani's hematocrit measured above the fifty percent threshold for several stages before he was thrown out of the 1999 Giro d' Italia for "health reasons." There is also the connection between Marco Pantani and Francesco Conconi, the Italian doping doctor who experimented on riders with recombinant EPO under the pretext of developing a test to detect recombinant EPO. Nevertheless, Marco Pantani was convinced he had been framed in a diabolical plot contrived by a group of greedy men who had been "corrupted."
Was Marco Pantani correct in his supposition? Cycling, at the time, was rife with corruption. Drugs were being abused flagrantly. The highest circle of the UCI could be manipulated with bribes. The teams ran doping programs without sanction. Dark days had descended upon cycling. Marco Pantani denied any wrongdoing, he explained, "he knew the doping test was coming, so he could have taken preventive measures to avoid detection if he had done anything wrong." Of course, Marco Pantani knew as the leader of the Giro d' Italia he would be subjected to mandatory dope tests. The real question is if Marco Pantani knew a mandatory test was required, why did his hematocrit test above the legal limit?
It is incredibly sad to see a man lose his dignity. Marco Pantani was bludgeoned everywhere he went. Even on simple training rides, he was sneered at by people who were convinced he was champion by means of dope. The press was relentless in their accusations. The former hero of Italy had now become a goat.
But even downtrodden men recover and Marco Pantani had a will of iron. Marco Pantani was hit head-on by an automobile that somehow entered the course during a race. His leg was broken with a compound fracture that required a metal splint to repair. He had to undergo an extensive period of physical rehabilitation. He was never expected to walk again let alone ride a bicycle. Nevertheless, Marco Pantani did ride again, he rode so well he set the record up L'Alpe d'Huez, and won the Tour de France and Giro d' Italia in the same year. (1998)
During the 2000 Tour de France Marco Pantani almost did the impossible. He nearly caused Lance Armstrong to lose the race by setting an incredible tempo that made Lance Armstrong miss a feed and bonk! Unfortunately, Marco Pantani became a victim of his own stratagem, he experienced stomach cramps and had to withdraw from the race.
Marco Pantani was finished as a top world class rider, he was a broken man who was destined to find solace in cocaine. His cocaine dependence would increase until he was found dead alone and abandoned in his hotel room.
Italy was shocked. The people who had rejected Marco Pantani in life mourned with loud lamentations his death. His casket was carried on the shoulders of his admirers. Eighty thousand people attended his funeral.
I wrote a comment to the Guardian newspaper online that was published. I said the death of Marco Pantani, "broke my heart." I watched the Mont Ventoux stage of the 2000 Tour de France dozens of times, marveling, entranced, in awe of those supreme climbers. If Lance Armstrong was full to the gills with dope, what about Marco?
Conclusion
Nothing disgusts me more than to watch smug Greg LeMond comment like he is an exalted angel without blemish who is qualified to pontificate on the sins of others, while there may be many undiscovered skeletons in his own closet! Sir Bradley Wiggins, most average in his tour performances before he became King and knighted, reminds me of the pre-cancer Lance Armstrong and the post-cancer survivor, money did not improve his performance or the fact that he moved to a more prestigious team. Yet his exaltedness, Sir Bradley Wiggins, wishes to comment for our elucidation, looking down his pointed beak in disapproval upon the unwashed who would dare to question the source of such inexplicable improvements. We rabble who dare to presume are considered conspirators who would dare to spit in the soup of cycling expectations by scenting a pretender in our mists, much like David Walsh, holding his nose while manning the barricades. The tone of the film was spoiled by the presence of such exalted beings, Greg LeMond and Sir Bradley Wiggins!
The Tour de France is not won on mineral water alone! In my opinion, there has never been, nor will there ever be a dope-free Tour de France champion. Cycling groupthink has evolved in an Orwellian sense to a higher plain of manipulative rhetoric. Cycling wants so desperately to move on from the steroid era that it is fabricating reality by manufacturing new truths. Ignorance is Strength. Doping in cycling must continue unabated, the stakes are too high, but the family wants the problem to vanish under the guise of distorted propaganda. Sir Bradley Wiggins serves as an icon of this distorted propaganda: with his fabricated virtue, and his holy Team Sky who are above reproach with their fabricated philosophy of "ride clean." Yes, we have been spoon fed these assurances before, and we note with disdain that Team Sky has employed doctors who have spotty backgrounds.
The stench, something is rotting, the air is saturated. Marco Pantani was a pure climber, a great rider with a tortured soul. A man who was spat upon by cycling. A man who was singled out as an example and cruelly punished for playing the game by the family rules. Eighty percent of the pack was using performance-enhancing drugs during the steroid era according to Tyler Hamilton. Most of whom were never punished.
But cycling has always maintained a double standard. Marco Pantani and Floyd Landis were forced out, in disgrace, mocked, vilified, while Alberto Contador was welcomed back with open arms all forgiven.
"Never again" is their mantra. Never demean another rider in such a hypocritical fashion is my mantra. Treat people with respect is my mantra. We all make mistakes and deserve to be forgiven. We do not need to drive riders to such desperate extremes that they need to take their own lives alone and forsaken. Shame on us! Equity for all, man the barricades!
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