Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
|
Loading... The Death of Marco Pantani: A Biography (2006)by Matt Rendell
   No current Talk conversations about this book.   ) Polaris- | Jan 26, 2011 |  The best way to summarise this is through a couple of lines in the final chapter: "Looking back, Marco’s successes, like any number of world records, gold medals, and winning sequences in recent sporting history have a phantom quality. … They weren’t events at all, but phantasmagorical experiences with no clearly definable reality that existed chiefly in the emotions they caused in millions of indivdual minds. The emotion most associated with Marco is euphoria, yet we know now that it was triggered by the poisons that flowed through his veins and made his flamboyant style possible." It’s worth exploring this further. One of the most exciting sights in cycling is a climber attacking the field and gaining the minutes he needs to win - and Pantani’s stage win at Les Deux Alpes in 1998, when he attacked on a climb in atrocious conditions, descended recklessly, then climbed again, to make enough time on Ullrich to seal his Tour victory - was one of the most exciting days of racing in my lifetime. But in a (literally) forensic analysis, Rendell demonstrates that Pantani had been blood doping through the use of EPO almost from the start of his professional career. At the same time, he kicks away one of the cycling fans’ supports. Almost all of the successful cyclists in the 1990s used EPO. So the fan’s defence is that EPO use must have levelled the playing field. Rendell suggests that athletes respond differently to EPO, and that Pantani’s success might just suggest that his body was better attuned to the drug. More at: http://aroundtheedges.wordpress.com/2009/02/27/reaching-the-heights-touching-the... ( ) nextwave | Apr 9, 2009 |
 In the above book, Matt Rendell refers to a conversation between Lance Armstrong and Pantani as bizarre. He obviously thinks of this as very important as he put it in his opening page of the book, in the quotation page. It has some how been "lost in translation" . The conversation is described like this in the book: "It was a bizarre encounter, as Armstrong later recalled:`I tried to speak to him in italian" E allora, com'e` la forma? `So how's your form? - `He just laughed: `Siiii, la forma - la forma di formaggio... - `Yesssss, the form in formaggio (cheese). This isn't the correct translation!!! Not at all. Pantani was playing with words.., as "la forma" is also the shape of parmisan cheese in its entirety. This answer, expression, is commonly used in the italian language, there is nothing bizarre about this. Thousand of Italians are using this expression everyday when they don't want to answer the question and brush it off. They don't obviously refer to how is the form in cheese as the author is suggesting. What is surprising is that Matt Rendell didn't research this at all, and he is actually insinuating that it was an early sign of Pantani "madness". Now, I have read the rest of the book, and even though the narrative is good, with my mind set up in the frame of mind that the author didn't bother to research the book properly, I had to take all his "facts" with a 'pinch of salt'.!!
At 9:30 pm on 14 February 2004, former Tour de France winner Marco Pantani was found dead in Rimini. It emerged that he had been addicted to cocaine since Autumn 1999, weeks after being expelled from the Tour of Italy for blood doping. Conspiracy theories abounded - that he was injected in his sleep by a business rival, that the Olympic Committee had framed him, that Italian Industrialists had engineered his downfall, etc etc. If none of these is entirely true and none of them fully explains Pantani's personal tragedy, none of them is foundationless. This book will debunk the myths and make surprising revelations. About Pantani's personal tragedy, but also about the world of cycling. Matt Rendell has access not only to court transcripts but to many of Pantani's friends and the doctors who treated him. But Pantani's life is about much more than drug addiction. Lance Armstrong described him as 'more of an artist than an athlete - an extravagant figure...' Despite being plagued with injuries he won both the Giro and the Tour in 1998, something very few cyclists even attempt. He was an inspirational icon, and the remarkable wins against all odds make gripping reading. No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)796The arts Recreational and performing arts Athletic and outdoor sports and gamesLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.54)
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wikipedia in English
2