We continue our Six Days of the Giro series with a look at the troubled bond between Marco Pantani and the Giro.
Some were meant to be tormented, as though it were preordained that their brilliance should be balanced with fatal flaws. These are tortured souls, whose dramatic highs are equalled only by the devastating depths of their lows.
Cycling drinks its fill of these personalities, and climbing seems to attract more than its fair share. Shakespeare himself couldn’t divine a better premise; the discipline most focussed on suffering in a sport totally focussed on suffering will always attract the most enigmatic of sorts. Charley Gaul, José MarÃa Jiménez, Marco Pantani; the list goes on.
Italy’s geography seems to lend itself to climbing and therefor suffering. There are mountains from north to south, and it being a narrow stip of a country, there is no occasion to avoid them for very long before any parcourse is once again forced to go over them. Already Monday’s Stage 3 of this year’s race is a lumpy thing with two categorized climbs and Stage 4 has an uphill finish. This will be a race for those able to suffer.
Pantani in particular seemed inextricably bound to the Giro. Even before winning in 1998, he found himself winning some of the hardest mountain stages, though his temperament dictated that for every great day on the bike, he would be pay at least V bad ones. In 1999, he looked to be the sure winner before registerring a hematocrit over the UCI 50% limit at Madonna di Campiglio. In 2000, he returned once again, but was far from his best and rode in support of his teammate and eventual winner, Stefano Garzelli.
He struggled on for a few more years, but always tried to shine in Italy. In 2003, in a heart-wrenching display of defiance, he gave the last of himself in vain before disappearing from the sport for good.
It reminds me of a song written by a man who’s life was similarly tormented, Layne Staley. Perhaps Layne and Pantani were two parts of the same whole.
My pain is self-chosen
At least, so the prophet says
– Layne Stayey, River of Deceit
Maybe Layne could have been a Cyclist in another life.
I know as well as any of you that I've been checked out lately, kind…
Peter Sagan has undergone quite the transformation over the years; starting as a brash and…
The Women's road race has to be my favorite one-day road race after Paris-Roubaix and…
Holy fuckballs. I've never been this late ever on a VSP. I mean, I've missed…
This week we are currently in is the most boring week of the year. After…
I have memories of my life before Cycling, but as the years wear slowly on…
View Comments
@Ron - Spot on mate. Some of the descents on the Giro are friggin amazing. I rode the TT stage that Dirty Den Menchov won a few years back in the Cinque Terre. I still can't believe a bunch of them (especially the silent menchov) didn't fly off into the sea. So frigging technical and surfaced to racetrack style smoothness so you could really clart it. Scary!
@frank
Thanks for the fix. I was a wee bit worried then figured that you'd get it sorted as you don't like people messing with your baby (metaphorically speaking)!.
@frank Double check your .htaccess or any other configuration files. Hackers sometimes install a backdoor.
Or, once you have a clean state, put your whole site in Git. Then you can tell if any changes were made, anywhere.
Funny, I was just reminiscing with a friend today about how I bought these aero bars because of Pantani. Had them mounted on my 1998 steel Vitali with Campagnolo Veloce. I think I still have them. Are they compliant with The Rules? I doubt that they'd work on my Cinelli with the flat top bars I have.
@frank - the link to the YouTube vid isn't workign for me.
@TBONE - I think Spinaci's look pro. Kinda like Scott Drop-In's (but maybe more useful?)
Dirty little drugs cheat. Would we know of him without the cheating and the OD? Why do his records still stand? His ride up Alp d Huez, he may as well been riding a motorbike!
@piwakawaka
De mortuis nihil nisi bonum.
@G'rilla
There is a kit out there that takes advantage of a security hole in the WordPress plugin named mm_forms_community. The vulnerability allows attackers to append garbage to any php and js files on the server that have anonymous write access. If you are using mm_forms_community, then remove it right away. The site is probably on a shared server, and it's likely that another WordPress site on the server has compromised, so you won't be able to remove the security hole if you're not the server admin. To prevent your site from being hacked over and over again you should remove anonymous write access from all php and js files. It's easier to remove anonymous write access from the folders. During normal operation WordPress doesn't need write access. The only time you should enable write access is when you're installing a WordPress update, after which you should remove it again.
@The Grande Fondue
Youtube link not working for me either.
Good call. During yesterday's 115km/2000m of climbing sufferfest some buddies and I rode past some tryfags, they were all getting aero. We got into an echelon (all three of us)and did this, chuckling amongst ourselves. Of course it was all lost on the try-plebes.
@TBONE
Oh, in that case, what an inspiration to us all, the way he rode was amazing...