Retired in the pink jersey: Evenepoel like Merckx and Pantani

Cesena – There will be another step in their career, then, which will unite Eddy Merckx And Remco Evenepoel. Both, for different reasons, the first for alleged doping, the second for Covid, had to leave the Giro d’Italia in the pink jersey. Remco also shares the same fate with Marco Pantani, the last leader forced to retire. There are two episodes, those of Merckx and Pantani, which have truly made the history of the Giro and of cycling for their drama and their impact on this sport.

Merckx and the tears of Albisola

Albisola, 2 June 1969. Merckx, 23 years old then like Evenepoel, is in the squad after the sixteenth stage Parma-Savona with an advantage of 1’41” over Felice Gimondi and he seems to be heading for a comfortable victory, the second in a row at the Giro. But the Cannibal is positive both in the first anti-doping control, carried out before the start, and in the counter-analysis, after the stage. When his positivity is announced in the morning, Sergio Zavoli enters Merckx’s hotel room. “Mr. Merckx, you have always maintained that you have never been doped. What can you tell us now that her positivity has also been reconfirmed in the counter-analysis? “. Merckx she cries and swears she never took anything. The offending substance is a stimulant, the Phencampamine. Death on Ventoux by Tom Simpson, in 1967, had suddenly turned on the world of sport a sinister light, that of doping, and the Giro could not help but send home the strongest. That day, in the Celle Ligure-Pavia, Gimondi he will refuse to wear the pink jersey. He will win the Giro over Michelotto and Zilioli. Merckx would imitate Gimondi two years later in the Tour, when he refused to wear the yellow jersey lost by Luis Ocana after his dramatic fall on the Col de Menté descent.

The facts of Madonna di Campiglio

Exactly thirty years later, in 1999, the events of Madonna di Campiglio. Marco Pantani he dominated the Giro until that terrible 5 June, “one of the saddest days in the history of cycling”, as Adriano De Zan would define it at the start of the commentary. The Pirate won in Pampeago and Madonna di Campiglio and is preparing to wear the pink jersey up to Aprica: before the penultimate stage he has an advantage of more than 5 minutes over Savoldelli and 6’12” over Gotti. Pantani’s blood hematocrit rate is checked, a check “to protect health”: 52%, over the 50 threshold. Immediate disqualification and everything that will follow. Savoldelli out of respect, but also perhaps for reasons of public order, given the number of Pantani fans on the Mortirolo, decided like Gimondi not to wear the pink jersey. But the Giro will be won by Ivan Gotti.