The Death of Marco Pantani: A Biography

by Matt Rendell

Paper Book, 2007

Status

Available

Call number

796

Genres

Collection

Sports - Cycling, Tour de France

Publication

Phoenix (2007), Edition: New Ed, 324 pages

Description

At 9:30 pm on 14 February 2004, former Tour de France winner Marco Pantani was found dead in Rimini. It emerged that he had been addicted to cocaine since Autumn 1999, weeks after being expelled from the Tour of Italy for blood doping. Conspiracy theories abounded - that he was injected in his sleep by a business rival, that the Olympic Committee had framed him, that Italian Industrialists had engineered his downfall, etc etc. If none of these is entirely true and none of them fully explains Pantani's personal tragedy, none of them is foundationless. This book will debunk the myths and make surprising revelations. About Pantani's personal tragedy, but also about the world of cycling. Matt Rendell has access not only to court transcripts but to many of Pantani's friends and the doctors who treated him. But Pantani's life is about much more than drug addiction. Lance Armstrong described him as 'more of an artist than an athlete - an extravagant figure...' Despite being plagued with injuries he won both the Giro and the Tour in 1998, something very few cyclists even attempt. He was an inspirational icon, and the remarkable wins against all odds make gripping reading.… (more)

Media reviews

Italian Language

In the above book, Matt Rendell refers to a conversation between Lance Armstrong and Pantani as bizarre. He obviously thinks of this as very important as he put it in his opening page of the book, in the quotation page. It has some how been "lost in translation" . The conversation is described

like this in the book: "It was a bizarre encounter, as Armstrong later recalled:`I tried to speak to him in italian" E allora, com'e` la forma? `So how's your form? - `He just laughed: `Siiii, la forma - la forma di formaggio... - `Yesssss, the form in formaggio (cheese). This isn't the correct translation!!! Not at all. Pantani was playing with words.., as "la forma" is also the shape of parmisan cheese in its entirety. This answer, expression, is commonly used in the italian language, there is nothing bizarre about this. Thousand of Italians are using this expression everyday when they don't want to answer the question and brush it off. They don't obviously refer to how is the form in cheese as the author is suggesting. What is surprising is that Matt Rendell didn't research this at all, and he is actually insinuating that it was an early sign of Pantani "madness". Now, I have read the rest of the book, and even though the narrative is good, with my mind set up in the frame of mind that the author didn't bother to research the book properly, I had to take all his "facts" with a 'pinch of salt'.!!

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