Product 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 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #161136 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Bryan Appleyard, NEW STATESMAN (3.7.06)
'Superficially [Pantani] appears to be a familiar type of sporting self-destructor. Like George Best, Diego Maradona, Alex "Hurricane" Higgins, and so on, he was prodigiously gifted; like them, he couldn't handle success and its aftermath. But, if Rendell is right (and the evidence does seem conclusive) unlike them, he was a pharmaceutical creation almost from the beginning. He was "cycling's greatest cheat"...It is the pursuit of this revelation that makes the...book so readable.'

Review
'Superficially [Pantani] appears to be a familiar type of sporting self-destructor. Like George Best, Diego Maradona, Alex "Hurricane" Higgins, and so on, he was prodigiously gifted; like them, he couldn't handle success and its aftermath. But, if Rendell is right (and the evidence does seem conclusive) unlike them, he was a pharmaceutical creation almost from the beginning. He was "cycling's greatest cheat"...It is the pursuit of this revelation that makes the...book so readable.' (Bryan Appleyard NEW STATESMAN (3.7.06) )

'an excellent book about the life and death of il Pirata, The Pirate, as Pantani was known. Rendell has interviewed dozens of those closest to Pantani to paint an intimate and sympathetic - if unsentimental - picture...this is also a work of meticulous investigative journalism that shatters whatever doubts anyone could still have about systematic doping in cycling.' (Xan Rice OBSERVER SPORTS MONTHLY (2.7.06) )

'[a] sad, exhaustively detailed and beautiful book...This book, unflinching though it is, serves as a fitting, ambivalent tribute - to the man, and to the dark heart of the sport he loved.' (Chris Maume INDEPENDENT (4.7.06) )

'Matt Rendell must have been a forensic detective in a previous life, because while his research for the chapters up to mdc is particularly impressive, his account of the years of desperation leading to Marco's eventual death is breathtaking...Matt Rendell is to be congratulated on the tenacity of his investigations and for producing such a readable and absorbing account.' (www.washingmachinepost.net )

'There are three passages in this brilliant but nightmarishly bleak book where, caught up in the excitement of Pantani in his pomp, Matt Rendell switches to the present tense to describe his greatest victories. The writing here is breathless, awe-struck, more evocative and incisive than TV pictures or newspaper reports could ever be. But Rendell, although a fan, is meticulous and painstaking and he investigates the Shakespearean tragedy of Pantani's life as if it were a crime scene.' (Angus Batey THE TIMES (22.7.06) )

Chris Maume, INDEPENDENT (4.7.06)
'[a] sad, exhaustively detailed and beautiful book...This book, unflinching though it is, serves as a fitting, ambivalent tribute - to the man, and to the dark heart of the sport he loved.'

Customer Reviews

Riveting, disturbing, and quite sad
After a slow start this book becomes "can't put it down" material. Rendell's research is exceptionally detailed and you really get to understand how doping benefits cyclists. Delving into Pantani's personal life is where the book excels, rivets, and upsets though. Reading about his decline and cocaine problems was extremely moving, and even after putting the book down for an evening my mind would still be going over the content. Well worth reading, whether you're a cycling fan or not. The fine line between genius and madness is well revealed here, showing how the gifted Pantani slipped onto the wrong side of the line.

An unfortunate must read
I have a framed picture of Marco Pantani hanging in my stairwell. This obviouse admiration has been badly soured by Matt Rendell's book. It was not the revelation of drug taking, like most cycling fans I knew that already, it was Rendell's cliam that Marco was little without the drugs. Rendell's central point is that Pantani was unique more for the way his body fed of EPO, it was this that made him great- he was the best at benefitting from this cheating. Drug use did not create a level playing field of abuse but simply allowed those with access to the most systematic programmes to cheat. The glory of the great climbers is their ability to suffer, it is this that I admired and still do, not their physiological metabolism of EPO.

This is a must read for all cycling fans. Rendell's research is of academic level and integrity and he has to be congratulated for his diligence in getting some very complex biochemistry spot on. He has changed my view of drug use in cycling, they are not all at it and no mater how romantic the charecter Pantani may have been he was a cheat and like Tom Simpson before we should not admire this sort. We should admire those who fight and suffer clean, no matter what their level of success they are the true heros.

A compelling lifting of the lid on professional cycling
I found this book moving, stunning, exciting and ultimately tragic.
I love professional cycling but in the English speaking media we rarely get much detail beyond the headlines. This book gives you the excitement that makes the sport so fantastic but shows how clear it was Pantani and most of the rest of the Italian peleton doped there way to dominance. We thought they had, but Matt brings the threads together in a well written account.

Even for non cyclists Pantani's rise and fall into addiction is a compelling and salutory tale.

Recommended.

Cheers Matt.