Pantani’s death, the anti-mafia commission: “Anomalies on exclusion from the Giro”

In June 1999 al Tour of Italy in Madonna di Campiglio, “several and serious” were the violations of the rules established so that the checks carried out on the riders were genuine and as free as possible from the risk of alterations: this was stated by the outgoing president of the anti-mafia parliamentary commission, Nicholas Morapresenting the work carried out byAntimafiaand in particular by the Committee coordinated by Senator Endrizzi, on what are defined as the “many anomalies” that marked the story that led to the exclusion of Marco Pantani from the Giro d’Italia.

Specifically, in carrying out the checks on the athletes – explains Morra – the Protocol signed by the UCI with the hospital in charge of carrying them out was not respected. From the work of the Commission, it emerged that in affixing the label to the test tube that contained Marco Pantani’s blood sample, the rules imposed to guarantee anonymity were not followed, since other subjects were present, other than the UCI inspector who allegedly I must have been the only one who knew the number marking the tube.
“It was also ascertained – Morra points out – that the blood sample from Cesenatico was taken at 7.46 and not already at 8.50, as instead indicated in the trial that he had to undergo for ‘sporting fraud’: this gross discrepancy, rather singular, it excluded the possibility that in that trial the hypothesis of manipulation by ‘deplasmation’ of the blood sample was evaluated”.

At the conclusion of the investigations carried out, the Antimafia states in the report that: “Contrary to what was stated in the judicial seat, the hypothesis of tampering with the blood sample, in addition to providing a valid scientific explanation for the results of the hematological tests, is compatible with the time data ascertained by the Commission’s investigation: by correctly placing the time of the sampling from Marco Pantani at 7.46, therefore more than an hour earlier than hitherto believed, it becomes possible to manipulate the test tube”.

And the hypothesis, for Morra, is even more plausible in the light of the information provided by Renato Vallanzasca – confirmed by the other elements acquired by the parliamentary investigation body – which reveal the strong interests of the Camorra in the sporting event, the subject of clandestine bets, and the intervention of the same Camorra to overturn the result through the exclusion of Pantani, whose victory was now almost certain.

The Commission’s investigation also focused on some anomalies that occurred during the investigation into the rider’s death. “The Judicial Authority immediately accepted the hypothesis of the accidental nature of the death, traced back to the self-taking of exogenous substances, completely excluding the possible referability of the same to a homicidal action”, recalls Morra. But the Antimafia has held some hearings that seem to question the evidentiary framework that led to the judicial outcomes. The statements made to the Commission by the health workers who intervened on the site of Pantani’s death, Morra recounts, ruled out the presence of the ‘cocaine bolus’ later found near the body. “The Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission hopes – concludes Morra – that full light will be shed on the events that saw the champion from Cesenatico as protagonist”