Pantani: The Accidental Death of a Cyclist

[wafter]

Watched this last night on Youtube:



I'm not usually bothered by pro-cycling and knew little of this guy other than having heard his name mentioned a few times. I found this a really interesting, well-produced and poignant documentary about his rise and fall in professional cycling; which arguably led to his death at 34.

So sad to see a man so consumed by a pure love of cycling exploited, corrupted, vilfied and ultimately utterly destroyed by the "win at all costs" team mentality and commercial interests present in the sport

 

[Slick]

I watched one on Netflix fairly recently about him as well and agree that he was certainly corrupted although everyone makes a choice at some point.

 

[GuyBoden]

Thanks, I watched it a while back, I might watch it again, IMO, Pantani was one of the greatest climbers, his choices were because he wanted to compete, like many of his generation. Different era.

 

[wafter]

Cheers guys.

I agree he had a choice; if only in the sense that you always have a choice, no matter how abhorrant your options might be. However, I can completely understand the disillusionment in moving from a position of total innocence and naivity in doing something because you absolutely love it, to trying to make this pay by turning pro and instantly being expected to corrupt yourself to satisfy those who are only interested in exploiting you for their own financial gain.

While the documentary makes some good points about competitive cycling having a history of performance enhancing substances, in the past it seemed more of a personal choice rather than a defacto expectation of riders by their teams. It's also sad to see how commercialised it's all become; much like many other sports during the latter part of the 20th century (look at football and F1 for example; not that I follow either).

Really it's all a sad indication of the power and corruptive influence of greed on individuals and sports that otherwise would (and should) have remained pure