10 years ago today

Sewinman
Sewinman Posts: 2,131
edited February 2014 in Commuting chat
RIP!

pantani_cropped1.jpg

Comments

  • secretsam
    secretsam Posts: 5,120
    <<Sniff>>
    It's just a hill. Get over it.
  • rubertoe
    rubertoe Posts: 3,994
    Waste of life (and talent)
    "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got."

    PX Kaffenback 2 = Work Horse
    B-Twin Alur 700 = Sundays and Hills
  • asprilla
    asprilla Posts: 8,440
    SecretSam wrote:
    <<Sniff>>

    Can't work our if there is a joke there.....
    Mud - Genesis Vapour CCX
    Race - Fuji Norcom Straight
    Sun - Cervelo R3
    Winter / Commute - Dolan ADX
  • raymondo60
    raymondo60 Posts: 735
    I remember reading the book about him - he was a very sad person, full of contradictions and insecurities, as are we all of course. Still a star in his own right though AND the last man ever to win the TdeF on an aluminium bicyle!
    Raymondo

    "Let's just all be really careful out there folks!"
  • poweredbyidris
    poweredbyidris Posts: 848
    The Humans Invent podcast about him that was released yesterday is very good. Really got to the reasons as to why he is so loved
  • anonymousblackfg
    anonymousblackfg Posts: 2,029
    I'm not sure you're going to see any pics of Froome dumping a gold merc on its roofed while Coked up to hell.
    If I know you, and I like you, you can borrow my bike box for £30 a week. PM for details.
  • ugo.santalucia
    ugo.santalucia Posts: 28,312
    On TV was incredible but I remember seeing him in the flash up the climb to Oropa (Giro 99), one of his last victories... the speed he was going up that climb was barely human... Jalabert passed, then Pantani arrived behind him and he was literally going double the speed in a 10% section of the climb... :shock:

    Years later I went to see the time trial up the same climb... I remember Bruseghin and Piepoli flying compared to the others, but still considerably slower than Pantani was climbing that day 8 years earlier...
    left the forum March 2023
  • velohutts
    velohutts Posts: 288
    One of the riders who was exciting to watch , all or nothing , matt rendells book showed the many flaws of il pirata, a character to say the very least on his bike.(despite the extra fuelling). Rip Marco.
    Enigma Esprit Di2 - Go tI ! Summer !
  • ugo.santalucia
    ugo.santalucia Posts: 28,312
    velohutts wrote:
    One of the riders who was exciting to watch , all or nothing , matt rendells book showed the many flaws of il pirata, a character to say the very least on his bike.(despite the extra fuelling). Rip Marco.

    At the time I was still living in Italy. Pantani made us proud, he made us cry, he made us scream... for the good and the bad he did things on the bike that no one else I remember did.
    left the forum March 2023
  • coopster_the_1st
    coopster_the_1st Posts: 5,158
    How is cycling going to move away from the doping years if one of the biggest dopers of his generation is still lauded by most? Would he have the status he has today with our the drugs?

    Yes, it is a shame he is not around now but he is one of biggest reasons that cycling was in the gutter at that time.

    He would have my respect if he had competed clean but is morale compass was way off!
  • ugo.santalucia
    ugo.santalucia Posts: 28,312
    Coopster the 1st wrote:
    How is cycling going to move away from the doping years if one of the biggest dopers of his generation is still lauded by most? Would he have the status he has today with our the drugs?

    Yes, it is a shame he is not around now but he is one of biggest reasons that cycling was in the gutter at that time.

    He would have my respect if he had competed clean but is morale compass was way off!

    If you grew up in a cycling culture, you would have grown to accept doping, like you do accept weed being smoked, mild alcoholism. There is a period in time when doping got out of hand with all the blood manipulation... but the current zero tolerance culture is imposed on the sport by people who don't love or understand the sport, they are just businessmen afraid of losing sponsorship money.
    Lawsuits for traces of drugs... sanctions for irregularities in the biological passport and penalties for not being at home for a surprise doping test... it seems to me all this belongs to the Gestapo repertoire rather than to the cycling world... but if that makes you happy... if your clean heroes are morally superior to Pantani and Armstrong, then enjoy your clean sport, until you find out it's not as clean as you'd like it
    left the forum March 2023
  • Bikequin
    Bikequin Posts: 402
    ugo.santalucia wrote:
    Coopster the 1st wrote:
    How is cycling going to move away from the doping years if one of the biggest dopers of his generation is still lauded by most? Would he have the status he has today with our the drugs?

    Yes, it is a shame he is not around now but he is one of biggest reasons that cycling was in the gutter at that time.

    He would have my respect if he had competed clean but is morale compass was way off!

    If you grew up in a cycling culture, you would have grown to accept doping, like you do accept weed being smoked, mild alcoholism. There is a period in time when doping got out of hand with all the blood manipulation... but the current zero tolerance culture is imposed on the sport by people who don't love or understand the sport, they are just businessmen afraid of losing sponsorship money.
    Lawsuits for traces of drugs... sanctions for irregularities in the biological passport and penalties for not being at home for a surprise doping test... it seems to me all this belongs to the Gestapo repertoire rather than to the cycling world... but if that makes you happy... if your clean heroes are morally superior to Pantani and Armstrong, then enjoy your clean sport, until you find out it's not as clean as you'd like it

    That's the sort of doping apologist rubbish that allowed the culture to continue for so long,
    You'll not see nothing like the mighty Quin.
  • ugo.santalucia
    ugo.santalucia Posts: 28,312
    Bikequin wrote:
    That's the sort of doping apologist rubbish that allowed the culture to continue for so long,

    As I said, I was there, I remember all those characters and they were not morally inferior to your Wiggins and Froome guys. Pantani was a great guy and a gifted rider
    Had Froome born ten years earlier, he would have taken EPO or give up the sport altogether.
    In the same way you hate dopers, I hate the culture of revisionism that wants to get rid of the past altogether. There were appalling episodes... but it wasn't all terrible. Before EPO there was doping, but nobody treats Merckx in the way they treated Pantani and Armstrong... so the question is, why not?
    left the forum March 2023
  • Bikequin
    Bikequin Posts: 402
    I think the difference, as you point out, is that EPO gave such an advantage that those that wouldn't dope were forced to drop out of the sport.

    I don't want to re-write the past and will happily acknowledge that even allowing for the doping some of the feats that Armstrong, Pantani and co achieved were incredible. However the point I won't accept is that doping was legitimised because everyone was doing it.
    You'll not see nothing like the mighty Quin.
  • poweredbyidris
    poweredbyidris Posts: 848
    Had he raced in a drug-free world, Marco's brilliance on a bike still would've shone the brightest. So to demand that he should've risen above the need to dope is to deny yourself the opportunity to have ever seen it.

    You're not a doping apologist to look at it this way. It was an 'arms race', and it was either do it, or leave the sport that you'd prepared for your whole life with very little else in the way of a career. It's not quite as black-and-white as good guys vs. bad.
  • pblakeney
    pblakeney Posts: 27,318
    I knew this thread would descend into this debate.

    IMHO, the difference between Armstrong and Pantani was the former's hypocrisy and bullying.
    That, and Pantani was more exciting to watch. I am glad I was interested in the sport at the time to see him do it.

    I won't condone cheating but I will always applaud the cyclist that attacks.
    The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
    I am not sure. You have no chance.
    Veronese68 wrote:
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