Pantani the “Pirate”, a painful myth of cycling always in the hearts of the fans
[ad_1]
He was born on December 13, 1970. He would therefore be 53 today. He would be a middle-aged man, even if middle age is an increasingly nuanced concept by now. Marco Pantani, who died of cocaine on February 14, 2004 at the Residence la Rose in Rimini, never actually died. And not just because his end still has some dark corners. Like all sports legends – but he is more so than the others – he is evoked on any occasion, at any time. An essential presence-absence in discussions, songs, comparisons. If you go to the Giro d’Italia, especially in a mountain stage, there is always some writing or some flag, the Pirate’s flag, which remembers and celebrates it.
But not with the pain that is dedicated to the young champions who have disappeared. No, you remember him as if he were still in the running. Ready to take off at the first favorable bend, with his boxer or samurai ceremonial: off the cap, off the goggles, off the bandana, off even the earring. It was the signal for everyone that the x time was ticking. A kind of gong that started his attack. Pure electricity, an earthquake shock. The magic that preludes something memorable. And those signs, still today, remembering Pantani, above all remember that feeling. Like Fausto Coppi, who also died young, he too always in the dangerous balance between victory and defeat, between joy and pain, between tender fragility and overwhelming superiority.
A high voltage myth
Recalling Marco Pantani, with all his powerful memories, is like touching a high voltage wire. You can’t be balanced, coldly balance strengths and weaknesses, not even almost 19 years after his death. It’s not allowed because with Pantani you’re either with him, or better let it go. He gave too many emotions, too much suffering. Pantani the Phenomenon, Pantani the Pirate, Pantani the climber, Pantani against everyone, Pantani against himself.
It’s difficult to find a champion, and not just from cycling, who embodies all these masks, all these shades of emotion. The only one who is perhaps behind him, for better or for worse, is Diego Armando Maradona. But we have experienced many phases of Maradona’s second life, we have in a certain sense metabolized it.
Pantani, on the other hand, slipped through our hands at 34, with the horrible feeling, even if he added his own, that he hadn’t done everything possible to hold him back, to keep him from falling, he who was the king of climbs. in an endless descent.
[ad_2]
Source link
