Marco Pantani, winner of the '98 Tour and Giro was found dead in his hotel room on the 14th. Godspeed to a true champion and the greatest climber of his generation.

http://velonews.com/news/fea/5556.0.html

This is crazy, no matter what you thought of him you had to respect his riding. I can't believe he is gone :(

Yeap,he was a great rider while on dope !

Originally posted by Leonel
Yeap,he was a great rider while on dope !

Nice.:rolleyes:

Am I wrong? :rolleyes:

Originally posted by Leonel
Am I wrong? :rolleyes:

Not wrong, just tactless.



A few more articles:

(sourced from Drunkcyclist.com)

Pantani is the topic of choice. There must be a dozen emails about him. What's up with that shit?

I read a few emails and start getting a picture in my head. And I don't like it one bit.

Marco Pantani is dead.

This is horrible news. Just terrible. I feel sickened by the news. Marco Pantani was a hero to me. His riding was incredible to watch. What a climber he was.

I had to back up and change the tense of those sentences. Was, not is. Past, not present. I can't believe I'm writing in past tense about Marco Pantani…

This is really taking the wind out of my sails. So much for riding the high from this weekend straight into Tuesday.

Thanks for all the emails you guys and girls sent in. I'll try to post all the links ya'll sent in.

velonews.com/news/fea/5557.0.html

cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2004/feb04/feb15news1

yahoo.com/sc/news?slug=reu-pantani&prov=reuters&type=lgns

sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/more/02/14/bc.eu.spt.cyc.pantanide.ap/index.html

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2004/feb04/feb17news

A relative claims Pantoni was on Crack!
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2004/feb04/feb20news