Today I'm going to present my analysis of a particular aspect of the EPO era and the aesthetically sad demise of cycling at the turn of the millennium. I'm going to look at the case of Marco Pantani.
The legend of the climber
Start by, if you will, taking a look at the Giro d'Italia stage that created the legend of Pantani. This was the emergence of a climber, a grimpeur, as the French say, in the pure tradition of Bahamontes, Van Impe, Charly Gaul or José Manuel Fuente. The legend of what it was that Pantani pulled off on this stage was at least partly due to the word image painted by Indurain after the stage ('I was seeing stars'). Pantani attacked relentlessly, and forced his competitors into a rythm they were unable to sustain. And he did so on the biggest stage of that year's Giro - the stage when Indurain had launched an attack on the bright young Russian star Berzin, who would go on to win the race. And on the savage Mortirolo climb, no less! Pantani was truly a sensation in the world of cycling.Notice how Pantani is riding at this point of his career. As the Danish poet and cycling analyst Jørgen Leth said in his 1994 analysis of Pantani's career limits: 'He sprints away. It isn't toughness or consistency, but pure acceleration'. There's an arythmic element to Pantani's way of attacking a climb in his 1994 incarnation. Tactically, though, Pantani was still a diamond in the rough. His breakthrough on the biggest stage of the season, the Tour de France, came on stage 11 to Hautacam, where Pantani showed a wonderful lack of patience in attacking as soon as the opportunity presented itself. He was crushed, of course, by a legendary performance from Miguel Indurain, whose constrictor-like attack from the head of the field was too much to handle for everybody (except Luc Leblanc who sat on his wheel and outsprinted the big guy for the stage win). Pantani had several of those moments in the 1994 Tour, where mistimed attacks or strategic errors cost him the elusive stage win. On the Mont Ventoux stage, his Carrera team had underestimated Eros Poli's resolve in getting over the hump with a 30-minute lead (but Pantani soared away from the other leading riders on the way up the Bald Giant). He was caught on the descent, but when the same thing happened at l'Alpe d'Huez and for the third day in a row at Val Thorens, it had become a theme of the 1994 Tour de France. This newcomer was the best climber in the world, and apparently it wasn't even close, but he was unable to time his attacks so as to win stages. Pantani finished third overall in that year's Tour de France, and he had played a major role in the animation of a Tour that could have become historically boring after Rominger's demise at Hautacam. There was even talk of creating an 'anti-Indurain route' one of the upcoming years, since Pantani, according to a quick calculation presented, among others, by Jørgen Leth in his 1994 book, would have been the winner of the '94 Tour (ahead of Ugrumov and Indurain), if not for the flat time trial at Bergerac, where Indurain had laid down the law.
I will state the bold claim that Pantani's performance in the 1994 Tour de France was one of the most influential factors of the cycling world in the mid-90s. So much changed because of Pantani's way of attacking the race. Pantani himself realized he needed to win some stages since he was the strongest rider in the mountains. He accomplished this the following year, though it came at the cost of no longer being a factor on overall classification. Miguel Indurain realized there was a new factor in his preparation for the Tour, and the following year he based his victory on unprecedented dominance on a few selected mountain stages (most notably the La Plagne stage, where he put more than two and a half minutes into Pantani), rather than time trial power. And the Tour organizers realized they had had a race in 1994 where several of the strongest riders had virtually been eliminated from serious contention by the long time trial. 1994 thus became the last year where all climbers were knocked out of contention after the time trial; already the following year, the first time trial was shorter and hillier, and in 1996, the mountain time trial made a comeback, and as the first time trial no less.
In 1996, Pantani wasn't able to partake in the mountaneous hodown of the Tour, but he came back after a series of accidents and setbacks in 1997. He was a changed rider.
During the first couple mountain stages of the 1997 Tour de France, Pantani looked like one of the stronger riders in the climbs, but hardly anything exceptional. He didn't have the extra giddyup that had made him the source of cycling romantics three years earlier, and Jan Ullrich's all-around dominance seemed to blur the resurgence of Pantani.
Then this happened. I know, more than anything this time trial was Ullrich's Indurain-esque execution of his competitors' hopes of toppling him that year, but it's also a very clear sign of the appearance of New Pantani. If you compare his performance in this time trial to Ullrich's competitors (Virenque, Riis, Olano), Virenque rode the time trial of his life, not least thanks to his taking Ullrich's wheel on the last third of the course. Pantani lost 38 seconds to Virenque. Riis had one of his best days of his title-defense Tour, and Pantani lost 34 seconds to him. Olano disappointed most observers on this time trial, but he still delivered a decent performance. Yet he could only beat Pantani by a mere 28 seconds. Jan Ullrich would have been a match for all the Indurains, Merckxes and Armstrongs of cycling history on this day, but even though nobody in the field could reasonably be compared to Ullrich on this time trial, Pantani still managed to lose only 3 minutes and 42 seconds. Compare that to the 10-11 minutes he would lose to Indurain on time trials before, and it's clear that New Pantani had appeared on stage.
Pantani's two stage wins en route to third overall in the '97 Tour were very different. Alpe d'Huez was the coming of age of New Pantani. It was a single-climb stage which produced some tremendous iconic images and some exceptional racing (Ullrich, who finished 47 seconds behind Pantani, produced what is still the fifth-fastest time on the climb of Alpe d'Huez, and the fastest non-time trial time of anybody not named Pantani). And Pantani, as he explained himself after the stage, used a different plan of attack from his former MO on the climbs. Rather than sprinting away from his opponents, he wore them out. He simply dropped them one by one, starting with Casagrande and Riis, then, in very dramatic fashion, Virenque, who would rebound spectacularly on the next day's stage. And finally Ullrich, who settled in for a good performance. But nobody could follow Pantani. There was no element of surprise, no blitz attack or any shenanigans like that - just sheer power. Notice as well how it is a noticeably more muscular, well built Pantani in the 1997 Tour - the romantic grimpeur of 1994 was a thing of the past.
He made two appearances in the following two stages. The following day, Pantani got dropped when Bjarne Riis led Ullrich and Escartin up the Col de la Madeleine, which proved to be the decisive point of that stage. He clawed back some time up the climb to Courchevel, but not quite enough. Then, on the final mountain stage to Morzine, New Pantani took a page out of the playbook of Pantani of old. He only needed to attack once, from the seventh or eighth position in the front group, and away he went. Apparently Pantani wasn't in his best health condition on the stage to Morzine, but the moment he attacks from the Telekom-controlled lead group is a thing of beauty.
The biggest year
1998 proved to be Pantani's mega-apex as a bike rider. In the Giro, which was a particularly tough edition, he was for the first time a serious candidate for the overall win. He started his Giro the way he had his '97 Tour (except for an embarassing attempt by the organizers to steal him an extra minute on Zülle, but that was hardly Pantani's fault). But on the stage to Selva Gardena he set the race on fire. Notice at the beginning of this video how Zülle has the race under control and looks cool and calm. Right before Tonkov puts the pressure on, Pantani had reportedly asked his teammate Roberto Conti when the climb (the fierce Fedaia pass) was supposed to get really steep. 'It's here!' replied Conti, and Pantani one-upped Tonkov's attack and went away with Giuseppe Guerini.This stage was the key moment of the 1998 Giro d'Italia, in itself a seminal moment in Pantani's career. He won another couple stages that year, so why this one? Because after Zülle's complete meltdown a couple days later, Pantani was no longer racing against the lanky Swiss rider, but against Pavel Tonkov. And if one excludes the Selva Gardena stage from the '98 Giro, Tonkov would have actually managed to still beat Pantani, in terms of pure calculation. It is very often forgotten that that apart from this one stage, Pantani's win in the '98 Giro was actually a very tight duel with Tonkov, and this stage proved the difference Pantani would need. Also, this was the manifestation of the New Pantani Doctrine, which would be put to good use a couple months later: No question Pantani could have dropped Giuseppe Guerini at will several times on the run-in to Selva Gardena, but he knew the company of a solid mountain specialist with good tempo qualities would be valuable in the grand scheme of winning overall. Pantani's victory in the 1998 Giro d'Italia was a festival of folklore, and he enjoyed an unparallelled popularity among Italian fans which would carry him into the Tour de France.
Pantani came to the '98 Tour de France as a remote outsider. He had won the media battle, projecting his own ambitions as a stage win or two, but no chance of overall success. However, the Giro win had lit a fire in Pantani, and he was clearly thinking differently himself. Quietly (which is to say, amid Festina headlines and speculation about Ullrich's real form, not many noticed it), Pantani rode an excellent time trial, and in the Pyrenees he would put himself in a contending position. His blistering attack on the Peyresourde on the tenth stage is vintage Pantani: he was clearly on form, and at the moment he attacks you can almost sense Ullrich thinking 'ah crap!'. Ullrich was clearly not on his best form - compare these images to the ones from 1997 for an excellent illustration of this.
Then came the stage to Plateau de Beille, which was a good performance by Pantani, but today it's probably best remembered for Ullrich's comeback to the leaders after a flat tyre at the worst possible time. Nevertheless, Pantani picked up more than 90 seconds overall before the Alps.
On the titanic stage to Les Deux Alpes, two riders met their fates in Tour de France history. Jan Ullrich put on his final yellow jersey on the morning of this stage, and such was the impact of his breakdown that he was never quite the same rider, never quite taking control of the race the same matter-of-factly way he did before. Ullrich did come back with a tremendous ride the next day to Albertville, but his successful attack (which nevertheless didn't shake Pantani much) might have been as much a result of inferior competition as the strength and resolve of a dethroned champion.
For Pantani, this stage represented the pinnacle of his career. He attacked hard on the penultimate climb of the day, the Galibier, in horrendous weather conditions, like his idol Charly Gaul before him, and then rode with a group of medium-strength mountain riders (Rodolfo Massi, Chrisophe Rinero and Fernando Escartin) to the foot of the final climb of the day. It was the stage New Pantani had rehearsed for, and although this was the multiple-climb adventure everyone had hoped to see Pantani go for, he still rode cleverly, conserving some energy at critical points of the stage, and displayed the same low-riding power position on the bike which had characterized him since his 1997 comeback.
At the finish line in Les Deux Alpes, Pantani spread out his arms like a savior of cycling in a year of intense crisis, and he would put on his first-ever yellow jersey on the podium shortly after. All of a sudden, the romantic climber of '94 was all grown up, and he was more than capable of putting on a display of effective defense on the way to Paris.
Ironically, after this mammoth performance it would be all downhill for Pantani the adventurous climber. He was now an established big-league stage racer, a Tour winner, and would be viewed upon as such for the duration of his career. No-one could have foreseen how little competitive racing this would entail.
Evil Empire
Marco Pantani started 1999 as a superstar of cycling, and of Italian sports in general. He took this superstar status very seriously, as his breathtaking attack on the Cipressa hill in Milan-Sanremo shows. The former reference point of the early spring season had become a tad boring in those years - and Pantani livened it up with what appeared to be a serious, if unsuccessful, attempt.The Giro d'Italia proved to be the decisive race again. The course was engineered so as to fit Pantani perfectly - one could even go so far as to say conspicuously so - and he took full advantage of it. On the ninth stage, a time trial, Pantani only lost 55 seconds to Jalabert, and was within half a second of keeping the overall lead. That time trial, by the way, was conveniently drawn up as a short (32 km) very hilly course. The other time trial of the race, a 45-kilometer course on the 18th stage, was more of a true time trial, but Pantani managed to only lose 1 minute 30 seconds to the specialist winner, Sergei Gontchar. The transformation into New Pantani had been completed, and Pantani was now one of the most complete stage race riders on the planet.
Of course, the time trials didn't matter that year. Because in every single mountain stage, the suddenly evil empire of the Mercatone Uno squad had shut down all attempts at Pantani's race lead, and Pantani himself had dominated the mountains like never before, and now with a Merckxian precision. He was on his way to a very convincing overall win, and he would certainly be a force to be reckoned with in the Tour de France as well.
It came at a significant price. It got boring to look at. Even when Pantani had punctures or other accidents, it seemed he could race at 80% effort and still humiliate his challengers, which that year counted Roberto Heras, Ivan Gotti, Paolo Savoldelli and Laurent Jalabert (so he wasn't exactly racing against semi-pro adversaries). And that dominance got even more ho-hum as the race went along. Am I the only one who has a feeling Pantani is on a training ride on the stage to Oropa? He was way ahead on overall classification, so there's no practical reason for his lack of victory salute. Pantani was no Indurain when it came to masking his feelings - notice how he's looking around when he's dropping Jalabert, like there is no real acceleration going on. 'Oh, did you not want to race? OK, off I go then'. Even Pantani was bored at times during the 1999 Giro.
That all changed after his elevated hematocrit level after yet another stage win, at Madonna di Campiglio. The next stage was going to be the toughest of the race, but with Pantani's utter dominance surely no-one could upset him at this point. So he lost to his own worst enemy - himself. He got thrown out of the race, maglia rosa and all, and the second coming of the Festina scandal was a harsh reality.
Ivan Gotti won the 1999 Giro without ever having looked like an overall winner. The final mountain stage, crossing the Mortirolo pass that five years earlier gave birth to the Pantani legend, turned out to be a fantastic bike race. But everyone's attention was still elsewhere. It was on Pantani.
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What happened to Pantani after that? He vowed to come back, which he did, as an ace domestique for Stefano Garzelli in the 2000 Giro. Garzelli won the race, not least thanks to some key contributions from Pantani (and some second-rate opposition, it should be said).
Pantani's 2000 Tour de France turned out to be his last, and there are actually a few highlights to mention from that race. He went out a little bit as he came in. Well, his much-publicized (and remembered) duel with Lance Armstrong was unprecedented, but his race strategy the rest of the way was the Pantani of old.
On Ventoux, it was clear to everyone - including Pantani - that Armstrong was the stronger climber. Armstrong, like Pantani, is extremely bad at hiding his true feelings, so everyone could see he was humiliating Pantani by giving away the stage win without even trying to mask it. Pantani was livid, which would reflect in the way he rode the rest of the way through the Alps. By the way, notice Pantani's build compared to the once-buff Armstrong on the slopes of Ventoux. Right? Pantani is the slender bird no more, but rather a high-watt power plant struggling to keep up with Armstrong's flailing bike and body. The transformations of both these riders probably have a lot to do with illegal substances, but obviously that is a whole different discussion.
On to the rest of the Alpine stages. Pantani reacted the way it would have become Jan Ullrich to react upon getting beaten by Armstrong: extremely spiteful. Angry. And it provoked the respectless attacker in Pantani, which would be the only entertaining aspect of a rather dull edition of the Tour. On the run-in to Briancon, Pantani was with a group of mountain specialists when Armstrong brings the bunch together. And Pantani then proceeds to launch the single angriest attack I have seen in cycling. He shoots away from the bunch for no apparent reason (he was no factor on the overall) but to show Armstrong he can do it. And it happens just as Armstrong establishes contact with the Pantani group (at 55:00 of this video). The following day, Pantani went into stubborn mode and rode Armstrong off his wheel on the way to Courchevel. This turned out to be Pantani's last great win. And it was great. He held off all the chasers, caught and passed José-María Jimenez, another one of the great climbers of the late-90s, and took the stage with a tough grimace on his face.
Then came a rest day where Armstrong openly bashed Pantani during a press conference. Armstrong mentioned Pantani's 'attitude', which apparently was Armstrong-speak for trying wholeheartedly to attack him. That would continue, however, on the following stage to Morzine, where Pantani launched his final great attack, and the one I choose to remember him for from the 2000 Tour de France. Everything, including soundbites from Armstrong's press conference, is in this video.
Pantani attacked on the first climb of the day, the Col des Saisies, and stayed away for three climbs, all the way to the foot of the final one of the stage, the legendary Joux-Plane. Then he completely blew up, and rolled all the way to the finish without competing for anything again.
It was an act of brazen confidence, but also of spite. Armstrong had proclaimed that Pantani was there to win stages, whereas he, Armstrong, was there to win overall. Pantani, who was nine minutes down on general classification, then proceeded to attack the only way he could if he was to have a chance to win the Tour: far, far away from the finish line. A true throwback performance which led many observers to compare Pantani's 'attitude', to use Armstrong's word, to Charly Gaul's back in the day.
What followed was one of the most bizarre mountain stages of recent Tour history. Understandably enough, Armstrong's US Postal team never let the furious pirate get too much of a lead, but the day-long pursuit cost them so much that on the Joux-Plane, Armstrong was isolated and outnumbered by his opponents for the first time in his years as a Tour contender. He wound up losing a couple minutes to Jan Ullrich, who, had he been on better form, might have won the Tour right there, ironically on the coattails of Pantani's bravery (see more about this in the post about Jan Ullrich). Pantani was the one who wore out Armstrong, but no challenger chose this approach to breaking down the Texan again, however successful it may have looked. It was simply too risky. And too old-fashioned. Yes - the romantic climber Pantani from his early days had made one last appearance.
The ending of the stage was bizarre too, ironically with Richard Virenque as its winner, and the main protagonist of the day, Pantani himself, rolling across the finish line surrounded by his pink phalanx of Mercatone Uno riders half an hour later. And then Pantani abandoned the race, never to be seen again. His prime merit of the 2000 Tour de France had been not only to win a stage at Courchevel, but also to show cracks in Armstrong's armor on the stage to Morzine. If not for Pantani's stubborn attacks, one would certainly have remembered 2000 as Armstrong's most dominant Tour win. Now, it turned out to be a race where the focus suddenly shifted to the fact that Armstrong needed perhaps the strongest time trial of his career, at Mulhouse, to even win a stage. Pantani made his contribution even without winning, just like he had in 1994.
Pantani's legacy
The remaining races of Pantani's career are a rather sad chapter. He was busted for PEDs again in 2001 during the Giro, and didn't return until the 2003 Giro where he made a few half-hearted attempts (or so they looked; it might have been more of a question of fading abilities). On February 14th, 2004, he was found dead at a hotel in Rimini. His death alone inspired scores of hommages of different types, most notably monuments in Cesenatico and at the Mortirolo pass, and a fan fiction novel insinuating he might have been murdered. The reality, however, is probably just the cocaine overdose the autopsy showed. A sad ending for one of cycling's greatest figures of the 1990s.Two questions remain when considering the legacy of Marco Pantani. Where would he rank among all-time great climbers like Gaul, Bahamontes, Van Impe, etc.? And what would have happened if Marco Pantani had had Lance Armstrong's luck when it comes to getting out of all kinds of PED-related jams?
It's hard to compare the qualities of bike riders across different eras. Was Miguel Indurain a better time triallist than Jacques Anquetil? Who would have won a Tour de France where both Merckx, Hinault, Indurain and Armstrong could participate, all in their primes? And would Greg Lemond in his accident-shortened prime have been a match for either one of them? Comparisons like that are borderline impossible to make. Suffice it to say Pantani's abilities in the mountains are all-time great, and he's definitely in the top tier of climbers in cycling history.
It is also hard to overlook the fact that he could have had more, though. When Pantani learned to channel his inner Charly Gaul, his unique physical gifts had faded, and it was too late. Had Pantani attacked in 1994 like he did on the Morzine stage in 2000, who knows how much he could have set the race on fire. Even in 1997, had he had the courage from Morzine, there were plenty of multiple-climb stages on which to upset Ullrich.
When was Pantani's peak even? Was it in 1998, when he got his most important results, or in 1994, when he appeared to do the best climbs in history, compared to his peers? It goes to the dualistic nature of Pantani's career that his Tour win might not have been his best performance. The field was decimated, several key contenders were not there. What would Virenque have been able to do on the stage to Les Deux Alpes? Dufaux, Zülle, all the other Festina riders? The way I see it, Pantani wasn't as physically gifted a rider in 1997-98 as in 1994.
Of course, Pantani's peak was in 1999, when he was as complete a rider as anyone vying for Tour or Giro overall success. That brings me to the second part of Pantani's legacy. For years, there was a widespread view of Pantani as someone who cheated and, absurdly enough, of Armstrong as someone who did not. Had Pantani not been caught in Madonna Di Campiglio in 1999 (or had he shown a little more caution in his medically-aided development towards being a complete rider), not only Pantani's life might have turned out completely different, but also cycling history. Before the 2000 Tour, Armstrong famously declared the race was going to be 'a heavyweight fight' with him up against Pantani and Ullrich at the same time. But Pantani (and Ullrich as well, but that's another story) had already faded as a contender, but if by then he hadn't, how easy would Armstrong's Tour win had been?
The Armstrong dominance in the Tour was built largely on swagger and bullying, and one might even argue that had Pantani made it to the 1999 Tour in something even close to his '99 Giro form, would Armstrong even have won that first Tour victory that brought him the confidence and swagger? In time, all doping offenders get caught or exposed eventually, that's been the rule, but could the years we have now erased from Tour history have been known as the 'Pantani Era'?
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Up and down, enigmas and legends, such was the career - and I guess the life - of Marco Pantani. Looking back on his cycling career, he was rarely a stable presence for long. Therein lies the fascination of bringing him up again now, and therein certainly lies the pain and sorrow of cycling - - the demise of Marco Pantani closely followed the general demise of world cycling.
