RichWalk

Still cant believe hes dead, despite his decline in the last few years, he was a true inspiration to me- his lone climp up Alp Duez which broke the mountains record time was the greatest exhibition of climbing I have ever been lucky enough to see. Cycling has lost a true character.

Duck_Pond

Marco Pantani (the Pirate) died over the weekend, aged only 34. The Tour has lacked his attacking genius over the last few years. His victory in the Tour was one of the best ever.

He'll be sadly missed.

ChrisB

Guys,

Hope you don't mind that I've merged the two threads.

A sad loss indeed. I too marvelled at his attacks up the big climbs of the Tour.

Chris.

Daz34

greasemonkey

Very, very sad. Unfortunately, not a total surprise either.

There are many lessons to be learned, for cycling, for sport in general, and in particular the Italian justice system.

pathetic shark

I'd echo the comments above. First thoughts on hearing of his death was that it was probably suicide, based on how depressed he'd been, though the Italian authorities now state that they don't believe this to be the case.

RIP Marco - a great champion, and someone with more personality in his little finger than Lance will ever have.

greasemonkey

Unfair Shark. Lance has been through more than Pantani ever has, but the difference is that he never gave up.

RichWalk

GM: thks for that, totally agree, I admire both of them for different reasons; will certainly miss the rivalry between the two of them!

pedro72

gutted

cfc2

As always the loss of life so young is so tragic but guys (opening can of worms here) is it possible to ride such vast distances at such pace (average speed up to and above 30mph) for 6+ hours. A sleep,massage and pasta meal later get up do it all again, for two weeks, everyday with a occasional time trial thrown in for good measure drug free!!!! why are so many young guys dying ????

greasemonkey

The pace itself isn't such a problem CFC. An athletically developed, adapted human can go very quickly on a modern racing bicycle.

As you say though, doing the sorts of distances and speeds that professional racing cyclists do day after day, usually in high ambient temperatures, certainly is a considerable feat.

Electrolyte and glucose drips have been part and parcel of the three major tours for decades, and, as you say, trying to determine where the line is is a real can of worms.

There's no question that drugs have played a significant part in the sport in years gone by. God alone knows what the Russians and East Germans were playing at from the 60's to the late eighties (in all sports, not just cycling), and there's no question that plenty of what they were doing found its way into the arms of athletes all over the world.

It's a shame that cycling was forced to react to the drugs issue (primarily as a result of the Festina affair) rather than proactively sort their own ship out, and it's an open question as to whether the UCI and the teams have actually sorted the bulk of the problem since, or just become better at sweeping it under the carpet. Still, at least they seem to have made a better fist of it than the idiots running men's professional tennis seem to be doing...

As far as cyclists dying, it's difficult to know whether this is as a result of drug use, or not. Adapted, fit athletes die suddenly and occasionally in all sports, so in this respect cycling is no different.

There's no question that prolonged use of blood thickening agents like EPO does lead to all sorts of complications, not least heart failure and embolisms. However, it's also possible that modern training programmes are pushing the riders to such an extent that some are unfortunately being pushed beyond the limits of their own bodies.

Cycling is one of the few sports that isolates the athlete from the bulk of the effort involved in supporting his/her own weight. The other main one is swimming, but you don't find swimmers competing continuously for several hours a day, and for three weeks at a stretch. Cycling places a unique set of physiological demands on the athlete, and it may be that some are unfortunately finding that their bodies simply can't cope with the stress as well as others.

andyr

Pretty decent article here by David Walsh - someone who some cyclists have 'issues' with but this is a good piece :

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...002875,00.html

As a weekend racer I am constantly in awe of pro-cyclists and what they achieve. It may be that everyone associated with cycle sport (fans, media, sponsors, race organisers, riders etc) has to rethink what the sport should be - as previously said, riding for 200km at ave 45km/h is bloody hard.
Doing this for 3 weeks with 1 or 2 days rest only is something that -

a) May well not be good for the long term health of even the freaklily-healthy rider
and
b) May encourage riders that need to complete each day either merely within the time limit or be at the head of the race to take banned substances.

The Vuelta recently added a 2nd rest day into it's 3 weeks - maybe 3 week races should not exist in anything like their present format, or maybe they should be more of the format of : 3 days racing, 2 days rest, 3 days racing, 2 days rest etc etc ?

Or then again maybe in a few months time everyone will view Pantani's death as an isolated, unfortunate death of a tragic individual and it will all continue as if it didn't happen ?