The Mystique of Marco Pantani

As Carol and Roger cycled south from Pienza toward Napoli, we stopped for a rest day in the town of Saturnia.

Saturnia is a lovely little hilltop town settled by the Romans…because of the thermal baths.

The hot spring still attract Italians today.  Tourists go to the nearby spa and golf resort.  The locals come here.  What really intrigued us though was not the baths but the road named after this man:

Marco Pantani was one of the great professional cyclists of the 1990’s.  He was disgraced by doping and died of a drug overdose.  But that’s getting ahead of our story.

Pantani was the best climber of his generation.  He stood 5’ 8” and weighed only126 pounds.  He was a very charismatic athlete and in his prime was one of the most popular athletes in Italy.

1998 was a very good year for Marco Pantani.  He started it by winning the Giro d’Italia.  He followed that victory by winning the Tour de France.  Only one other racer in the modern era...Eddie Merckyx...has won both grand tours in the same year.  

His Tour de France victory was the first by an Italian in almost 30 years. During the 1998  Tour, he set the record for climbing Alpe d’Huez, the most famous and challenging hill in all bike racing.  That record still stands today.

The next year, his career began to unravel.  He failed a drug test during the Giro d’Italia and was disqualified from the race.  He spent the rest of that season on the sidelines.

He returned to professional racing in 2000.  In that year’s Tour, Lance Armstrong beat him on two critical stages in the Alps, eliminating any chance Pantani had of repeating as winner.  On Mt. Ventoux…another legendary Tour De France climb…Armstrong let Pantani eke out a win…”out of respect for the man,” Armstrong said.

Pantani took the victory very badly, saying Armstrong had “insulted” him by letting him win.  After that day, Pantani was never a factor in bike racing again.

Two years later, Pantani was admitted to a psychiatric clinic for treatment of alcoholism and cocaine addiction.  A year-and-a-half after that, Pantani locked himself in a Rimini hotel for two weeks and eventually died of a cocaine overdose.  Friends said he could no longer handle the pressure of not living up to expectations.

Twenty-thousand fans attended his funeral.  

So why is Marco Pantani still idolized by thousands?  In 1998, he had one extraordinarily good season, but only one.  He was a drug cheat, a petulant winner, and an addictive recluse.  

His supporters would say Pantani did nothing his professional colleagues didn’t also do.  They may have a point.  From 1996 through 2010, every single winner of the Tour de France…6 different people including Lance Armstrong…admitted to or were convicted of doping during their racing careers.

Lance Armstrong, Floyd Landis, Jan Ullrich…all have been disgraced.  

Why does Marco Pantani have a statue erected in his honor…and a street named after him, Strada Marco Pantani, in Saturnia?

Roger set out to find out.

It turns out after his great year in 1998, Pantani built himself a villa on the hills overlooking this pretty valley.

And it turns out, the Strada Marco Pantani is not some lovely broad boulevard.  It’s a one-lane concrete track, cracked and rutted by time.  There's no street sign at either end identifying its name-sake.

It leads to a small village at the top of the hill, where Pantani had his home.  The road itself was perfectly suited to Pantani’s skills as a climber.  In the 2 km from the highway to the village, the road had sections with an 11% grade, a 13% grade, a 17% grade, and…near the top…a leg-breaking 19% grade.