Book description
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
debunks the myths and makes surprising revelations. About Pantani's
personal tragedy, but also about the world of cycling. Matt Rendell had
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. MATT RENDELL survived Hodgkin's Disease and
lecturing at British and Latvian universities before entering TV and
print journalism. He is the author of A Significant Other (W&N,
2004), a top ten sports book and Kings of the Mountains (Aurum, 2002).
His Channel 4 documentary on Colombian cycling was described in The
Observer as 'a gem, telling us more about the essence of sport in under
an hour than a season's worth of Premiership matches.' He has written
for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, including British coverage of the Tour
de France. The National Sporting Club named Matt Rendell 'Best New
Sports Writer 2003'.
