PANTANI FOUND DEAD

[Stevie Blom]

Former Tour de France winner Marco Pantani has died at the age of 34. Italian news agency Ansa reported that his body was found in a hotel room in Rimini. The causes of his death remain unknown, although police reports said no violence was involved.

 

 

SAD LOSS IN MY OPNION!!

 

 

STEVIE .b.

[Hertz Van Rental]

Some might not not agree with this - but here goes.

 

I do not mourn Pantani. The cause of his death is yet to be established, but Police say that no foul play is suspected. That really leaves a natural death, or he took his own life. My sympathies do overwhelmingly lie with the family and friends that he has left behind.

 

Pantani was a disgrace. He had numerous publicised drug convictions. Yes he won the Tour and the Giro double in 1998, but I doubt very much if he did it in a clean way as he spent most of the following four years serving bans, appearing in court, trying to overturn convictionsand getting caught again and again.

 

Once again, another rider who had fantastic talent was not content with developing that talent in a natural way. A reply may be that he was just one of many doing the same thing - so why were they not all banned for lengthy periods? The only people who seemed to take the blatant drug taking seriously were the Italian Police. The UCI faced the embarassment of another body trying to clean up their shameful sport.

 

I do not mourn Marco Pantani in the same way that I cannot understand the level of support for the memory of Tom Simpson. What difference between them and an emaciated street corner scheme junkie? What difference between them and someone who rides a race hanging on a car to win the sprint, or who takes a shortcut and rejoins the bunch? It's cheating whatever way one looks at it !

 

Before his death, the cycling world failed to take Pantani seriously any more because of his serial drug taking. I suspect that now he has died, he will be the best thing since sliced bread. If any more of our heroes are proven to be in a similar position, I'll feel just the same way about them. Let's take off the blinkers and see the truth.

 

".................There's many a guid man inside the cemetary who was never a guid man outside the gates.................!

 

Gordon Goldie[/i]

[Guest fatblokeonbike]

I expect this thread will be updated as news continues to arrive -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/res ... &x=39&y=14

[Stevie Blom]

Thanks for your input gordon!!

[Kenny MacDonald]

I unlike Gordon will mourn the passing of Marco Pantani. He was an extremely talented climber who brought excitement to the spectators of our sport. He was a charismatic showman , who could destroy a field in a matter of minutes on the steepest mountains. Yes he was caught up in the seedy side of our sport ( as many of our pro champions have been lately) and paid for his wrong doing. Who can state categorically, who is and who isnt using performance enhancing stimulants nowadays. Whilst I do not advocate drug taking in any way ,I mourn him as a troubled soul. Anyone who has read Graeme Obree's book will understand some of the pressures people with mental health problems endure.

Multiply this by living in the constant glare of the press and public and you can only guess at the poor mans anguish. Anyone who is driven to take their own life due to being hounded by the press and rumourmongers , should be given some respect for the good things they achieved whilst alive.

 

Remember :- "there but by the grace of god go I"

[Sean Gray]

Cheers Kenny, Glad to see there is a level head out there!!

 

Cheers

 

Sean.

[Guest fatblokeonbike]

The European Press comments.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3491435.stm

[a.yeoman]

Have to say I agree with Kenny.

Pantani had a remarkable talent and at his height he could rip any field apart. He brought a great deal of publicity to the sport - admittedly not all good, but he did raise the profile of our sport and brought a level excitement that few other could.

 

OK so he had convictions for drug misuse but who is to blame for this? Was it him or was it the pressure put on him by his team, the media, and his fans who know? I for one can’t begin to appreciate the pressure pro’s are under to win and win again.

 

It seems a bit unfair to compare him to “emaciated street corner scheme junkieâ€. Drug addiction in any form is an illness and for the “emaciated street corner scheme junkie†it is recognised, at least in the medical profession and in some sectors of society, as an illness and is treated as such. Various programmes are available to those wanting them along with all the help and support that is offered.

 

Mental illness should be treated no differently from any physical illness. It requires treatment, support, understanding, time and space if a patient is to recover and live a full and active life while contributing to society. Remember 1 in 4 of us will suffer some kind of metal illness in our lives and will require medical help for it

 

Lance was allowed to recover from his illness, shouldn’t everyone be given the same opportunity.

 

While I may not “mournâ€, as I never knew the man only the public figure of Pantani, I do think it is a sad loss, not just for cycling.

 

No one deserved to die alone in a hotel room at the age of 34 – no matter the circumstances or the events preceding their death.

[Stevie Blom]

Must say some interesting reply's from you all

Its been good reading gordons view and then again kenny and alans view.

Get a difference of opinion , are cheats or just under great pressure to achieve success.

So if you get your condition to a maximum and you train to your limit and you cant get any better what do you do ???

you find out your competitors are on drugs and they faster and stronger??

 

 

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Cycling's grim tale

 

As the cycling world reels from the news of Marco Pantani's death, let us not forget the passing of Belgian amateur cyclist Johan Sermon -- or Spanish climbing genius Jose Maria Jimenez, Frenchman Fabrice Salanson, Dutch rider Michel Zanoli and Italian trio Marco Ceriani, Marco Rusconi and Denis Zanette. Eight unexplained cycling deaths in 13 months. The Grim Reaper, it seems, has a new favourite sport.

 

Pantani autospy investigation ongoing

PANTANI: Riders & friends react

 

 

 

Medical examiners said Monday that full disclosure on Marco Pantani's autopsy will take weeks, but that two elements have emerged: "bleeding in the head and the lungs," according to Italian pathologist Giuseppe Fortuni. "At this point, we can rule out violence, but we will investigate everything else."

 

"No hypothesis has been excluded," added Fortuni, leaving the door open on a rumoured assumption of suicide.

 

"Physically, Marco was very strong. Psychologically, he was not," Dr. Massimo Besnati, the president of the Italian association of cycling physicians, said in Italian daily La Stampa. "His emotional decline since 1999 showed his fragility, his need for help."

 

For Pantani, suicide is a tragic possibility -- but it's at least a tangible one.

 

The question coursing through cycling is "Why?" For the seven deaths preceding Pantani, there is no answer. All seven were felled by apparent heart failure, their death certificates labelled "natural causes."

 

There is nothing natural about seven active or recently retired cyclists, ranging between 16 and 35 years of age, hit by heart attacks.

 

The assumption, of course, is drugs, a monkey that has sat upon the sport's back since 1998 and the Festina-infested Tour de France.

 

The drug busting of the French Festina squad -- a high-profile formation boasting a former world champion (Laurent Brochard), a Tour de France mountain king (Richard Virenque) and a perennial major-tour favourite (Alex Zulle) -- showed the grim face of cycling: a sport with a drug habit that was cultivated and condoned at all levels, from the riders to their national federations, according to Paul Kimmage, a former professional and the author of 1990's "Rough Ride," the first of now many tell-all books on cycling's drug addiction.

 

By coming clean -- Kimmage is candid about his own drug use -- the Irishman had grand visions of being a catalyst for sweeping change. Instead, he was blacklisted by his former teammates and coaches, his book was lambasted as the "rantings of a failed cyclist" and he was accused of searching for notoriety through scandal. "I was very naive," he says.

 

With cycling's morgue still working overtime, Kimmage's words have been proven hauntingly prescient. And despite recent drug clean-up assurances from the UCI (cycling's governing body), no one, it seems, heeded Kimmage's alarm.

 

EPO STRIKES AGAIN?

 

The first spate of cycling deaths occurred in the late 1980's and early 1990's, when scores of mostly Dutch and Belgian cyclists fatally tinkered with the novel blood-doping agent EPO.

 

Used uncontrolled, EPO puts a horrific strain on an athlete's heart. Oversaturated with oxygen-carrying red blood cells, blood can become like molasses, clogging the heart until the blood stops flowing.

 

The drug, however, is no longer new; cycling's scientists, it was thought, had perfected its administration, making EPO "no more dangerous than orange juice," as Dr. Michele Ferrari, an Italian who was the chemical architect behind some of cycling's most notorious teams, once told the French sports daily L'Equipe.

 

If that's the case, then what is happening now?

 

Maybe the long-term effects of EPO abuse have now arrived -- a hypothesis that sticks for the December, 2003 deaths of Spaniard Jose Maria-Jimenez (aged 32) and Dutchman Michel Zanoli (35), both competitive during EPO's golden age.

 

But what of Fabrice Salanson, Johan Sermon, Marco Rusconi and Marco Ceriani? At 23, 21, 24 and 16 respectively, the four were part of cycling's current and future generations.

 

Is EPO back (or still) in vogue? Are cycling's back rooms filling with new drug cocktails?

 

Whatever the answer, the consensus is sure: Zanette, Ceriani, Salanson, Rusconi, Jimenez, Zanoli, Sermon, Pantani...

 

Coincidence is no longer a possibility.

 

 

The old paste and copy is a handy tool

 

stevie

[Darryl Gunson]

The Sunday Times - Sport

 

February 15, 2004

 

Cycling: Dead at 34

DAVID WALSH

Marco Pantani was first kicked out of cycling in 1999, but he had pushed the self-destruct button long before being banned

 

The news agencies reported that the 1998 Tour de France winner Marco Pantani was found dead at his apartment in Rimini last evening, and an Italian friend said he was in a hotel and was discovered dead by the manager. What is certain is the sadness at Pantani’s premature death and the suspicion that it was utterly avoidable. Modern sport, in all its hypocrisy, has claimed another victim.

 

Italian police said the cause was as yet unknown, but that he had not died a violent death. A police team was conducting inquiries at the scene and medical tests were due to be carried out.

 

In Italy last night they showed clips of Pantani soaring away from his rivals in the Alps and Dolomites. They presented him as he desperately wished to be seen. And although they dared not say it, those victories came at a terrible price as Pantani paid for each one with a part of his life. He had been an unwell man for much of the last 10 years and while we await the official cause of his death, we already know where and when it started to go seriously wrong for Pantani.

 

He was a very talented bike rider, maybe the purest mountain climber since Lucian Van Impe or, before him, Charly Gaul. It was his bad luck to arrive on the professional cycling scene at around the same time as the dangerous blood-boosting drug, erythropoieitin. No matter how gifted, no rider could compete with those on EPO unless he, too, used the drug. When Pantani began, it wasn’t even banned.

 

But from the earliest days of his career, it was clear that he had a problem. He crashed during the 1995 Milan to Turin race and when taken to hospital, it was discovered he had an haematrocrit level of 60. The average level of male athletes is around 42 or 43 but Pantani’s blood was so rich in red cells, and consequently so thick, that the medical people treating him knew that something was amiss.

 

After a few days in hospital, his haematocrit level dropped to 16, an even more alarming situation than the abnormally high 60. But then a couple of doctors came from another town to visit Pantani and his haematrocrit level rose to 38. What was obvious back then was that the rider’s body was not always capable of producing its own red cells and that Pantani needed to be protected from himself.

 

But he had miles to ride and a Tour de France to win. What a travesty of a sporting event that 1998 Tour de France was. The police found drugs pretty much wherever they looked, five Spanish teams pulled out because they didn’t like the police presence and cycling’s No 1 team, Festina, was kicked out of the race because it was found with the biggest drugs cargo of all. And that was the race Marco Pantani won. He climbed the mountains at a speed that had never before been seen in the race and he took his place among the Tour’s champions.

 

Only recently a woman who worked with one of the teams in that race remarked that even in the midst of an overwhelming police presence, the cars bringing the drugs were still arriving at Pantani’s hotel. But what did anybody care as long as the man we called “The Pirate†continued to climb like an angel? The following year he was again dominant in the Tour of Italy but with two days to go his haematocrit level was 53 and he was banished from the race.

 

Cycling’s authorities say that an haematocrit level of 53 doesn’t prove a rider has used EPO but they knew about Pantani. Everybody did. Even that day, he showed up 15 minutes late for the drug test and they knew he had been using a saline drip to thin his blood and get his haematocrit down below the 50 threshold.

 

But everybody stayed quiet and waited for Pantani to come and animate the next mountain race. He was a fiercely aggressive rider in the mountains and loved by the tifosi. In cheering all the way to the summit, we hastened his descent.

 

There are a few good men and one of them, Professor Sandro Donati, tried to make the authorities see sense. Donati works for the Italian Olympic Committee (Coni) but has rarely had that body’s support and when Donati said Pantani should not be allowed to compete in Sydney he was overruled.

 

Donati had asked his medical commission to test all Italian athletes going to the Olympics; they found that Pantani’s body was not producing red cells at that time and that what the rider needed was medical help, not more competition. Pantani went to Sydney and the madness continued. His health further deteriorated but he clung onto the belief that he could again be the great climber.

 

Maybe it was the realisation that his health just wasn’t getting better that brought on depression last year, when he spent two months in a psychiatric hospital. Speaking from Rome last night, Sandro Donati expressed his sorrow at Pantani’s death and his disgust at those who contributed to it.

 

“This night,†he said, “there are some doctors in Italy who should not sleep easily. Journalists, too, played their part. They knew what he was doing and they urged him to go faster and faster. When he won, they said he was a legend, when he was very unhealthy. Marco Pantani could have been a legend by telling young people what he had done and how it had affected his life.â€

 

It would be easy to recall the majesty of Pantani in full flight, but it would another piece of hypocrisy. Better to remember that Pantani was destroyed by his ambition and by a sport with no will to police itself properly.

 

It is also worth remembering another great climber of this era, Jose Maria Jimenez. He was a Spaniard and they called him “Chabaâ€, an affectionate nickname for a man who thrilled the fans with his daring in the mountains.

 

Every other year, he would win the mountains jersey in the Tour of Spain and in 1998, the same year Pantani won the Tour de France, Chaba achieved his best placing by finishing third in the Vuelta.

 

Chaba Jimenez died two months ago, found dead in a psychiatric hospital. There was talk of cocaine but cycling people knew what it truly was. Another grim reminder of the carnage caused by a sport that has long been out of control.