Dark age of cycling part III: The Secrets of Pantani 

If you cycle across italy you will still see his picture in small towns miles from anywhere, on signs for bicycle shops as far away as on mount Etna. He is like a god now, living in human memory with great love. I saw him myself in 1998 at Le Tour in Dublin.

Thank you for providing these videos. I was recently banned from cycling news for simply asking questions. The thing that bothers me is we are supposed to pretend doping went the way of the dodo. I honestly don't care if riders are doping; I just have an issue with the attempts to smother the conversation.

Ciao Marco... da lassù non badare a chi ti vuole degradare... sei stato grande... dopo di te le montagne sono orfane. Noi amanti del ciclismo ti ameremo sempre. Ciao

I first watched your videos when you talked about the Canyon Inflite and thought you only made some reviews on stuff you bought, but man this is great stuff, please keep it coming ! 👍

One of the greatest! Nothing bring him back. May his soul rest in peace! 🌹!

the difference is NOT getting caught. its not about lack of drugs. ALL winners are drug users.

He'll always be one of the greats

Pantani the greatest climber ever. So sad how all these guys from late 90s early 2000s all ended up in a dark place . Meanwhile People still think indurain was clean and Riis gets to be a team manager

are crazy darktimes marco pantani is legend never while be rider like him

Actually the official record of Alpe d'huez is established 1995, and 1997, 1994 is the second and third best time on the climb set again from Pantani.

About Pantani cleaness you can read data contained in the Conconi's Dblab file. You will find that Pantani's percentage increase of hemtocrit is less than that of some racers and similar to that of other racers. You can find all these informations in an article by Eugenio Capodacqua, an italian journalist who was never kind with Pantani. Pantani was gifted, that's all. Regarding Pantani's eatlier years and exceptional physical skills, on the net you can find many interviews of Roncucci who was his director when he was amateur. Ivano Fanini too, although he blamed Pantani for doping, recognizes his superiority.

He was smart to climb in the drops. At the speed those guys climbed, being more aero uphill is a real advantage.

Thanks i enjoy your casts. Imagine if Marco had not have had those bad accidents how good his palmeras would have been. Just his return to cycling was a miracle..

I really enjoy your videos about doping in cycling. I think they are giving great inside!

I think I am with you about Pantani. I see him as a victim.

These were not the "dark age of cycling". The dark age is now when no one draws any interest in cycling. By the way the so called " doping" continues somewhat in every sport. Pantani and Armstrong brought cycling into the spotlight. Every time they squared off we knew sit would be a battle royal. Not so today.

Marco had a special climbing style (using Creatine - normally unusual in cycling) pedaling 44/26 gearing

Isn’t hematocrit level of 52% within limits (40-55% Hct normal ranges)

To me Marco was the best of the best. Every cyclist in the tour in those years doped, some did it better than others, but doping doesn't make you better, it allows the athlete to train harder more often, so they do more work than those they beat. Marco was so very talented and didn't deserve to be hounded the way he was. It is so sad that he felt so alone at the end and took a way out of the torment as he did.

There's been 2 riders used as scapegoats in cycling and all of the others are happy for that to have happened.

In 2003 and 2004 there were hundreds of sportsman dying from heart attacks or something like that As is the case of Miklos Feher, football player for Benfica that died during a match Marc-Vivien Foé also, Serginho Silva on Brazil and many more on secondary and local competitions I remember well that time and it was all too strange I always thought that there was something they were taking, and due to the number of young, poor and non major athletes it should be something easily obtainable at the time

simple! grande pirata siempre!

As you imply, Pantani was a lightning conductor. The list of names at the end, and it surely continued, is what maintains Paul Kimmage's anger. You won't like this - but perhaps Pantani was retired and lives on away from controversy quietly. They do that with pop stars and Marco was just as big.

Hearing voices can be a sign of acute psychosis, and unfortunately, self-medication with overdosing is most likely at fault based on your description

In the U.S. He was worshipped by every bike shop worker and customer that I knew back then.

I think if riders have passed doping tests of the time which in cycling are insanely stringent,they passed and what more can we do. They are doping right now...probably even better than before average speeds overall are still comparable.... They avoid the major climbs like Alp Dues in TDF BECAUSE they will smash the records..

1:31 a young Lantern Rouge is following the tour.

Love the videos man keep them coming

The Heart only has so many beats. The use of EPO & amphetimines will eventially take a toll!

pantani, was on a similar program to all other top pro cyclists of the day, armstrong, ulrich, riis, virenque, mayo, basso, jalabert, escartin, ...etc, etc, etc. he was just an extremely gifted light climber. move on

Good he lived before this disc brake era

Those days were nothing but the heaviest raw dopping days..........everysingle rider was doing it or they were outside the team or any chance.......

3:17 Additional oxygen consumption requirements for riding standing in the drops and stabilizing the upper body are minimal to almost none ...

Il Pirata, capo di la montagna.

3:40 that blood sample neve went to the refrigerator, but instead the docto put it into his pocket. That blood sample was alterated.....deliberately

the implied pattern is definitely true. Italian institutions, judiciary system, the international cycling federation and the media used him as a cover scapegoat when they realized that he wasn't as easily controllable as they thought and they did so to sell the idea of ​​a real fight against doping, when the doping system did one step further and everyone kept doing exactly the same. No doubt Marco was somehow, willingly or not, a martyr to hypocrisy, someone who fell into an abyss because he realized he had been used before, during and after.

On the main italian cycling web forum (cicloweb) years ago Silvio Martinello entered the chat to argue about Marco's story, all the context of the time, epo and doping use etc. What always made me raise an eyebrow at his speech is that, while he speaking in a very generic and diplomatic way, but exactly photographing the situation of a "pharmaceutical" context everybody raced in and the strongest in his opinion had to succeed in doing an exercise of morality and take advantage of that opportunity to clean up himself and the whole system at the same time, he spoke of what according to him would have been an (his strict words) unforgivable mistake committed by Pantani. The unforgivable mistake was putting face on the overall matter and being the group's spokesperson, referring to Marco when he exposed his resistance to the double antidoping procedure italian sports federation CONI wanted to instaurate during the edition 1999 of Giro. Why do you have to define something "unforgivable mistake" if Pantani paid a price just for his eventual mistake in taking epo and failing to enter under 50 in time for test of that morning? Strange words, honestly. You should define "mistake" something that brings a new consequence and the consequence here would be already generated by something else. I can believe the price for that "unforgivable mistake" was the start of institutions hunger, media and judiciary "attention" against Marco, but why someone couldn't believe that Marco played already a jolly in 1998 Lugano TT and the Madonna di Campiglio test has been somehow rigged (not by mafia, but cycling context itself) to make him remember that and low his confidence everything was in his hands? They covered Armstrong with several positive tests years later and if you read rumours, observe results of that TT where Marco overperformed, you could think that chances of a switch of samples exist. I honestly believe whoever responsible for doping tests, at the time could do anything in a way or its contrary. So, why not making sure the Campiglio test fails to punish him for that "unforgivable mistake"? It would explain many things.

He only got outed because he didn’t do what the powers at be told him to do.

It's kinda annoying when it's obvious that people don't know what make the Dark Ages "dark"

he was a natural climber and yes he was on epo like everyone else but his skills were not matched. Even the doper armstrong had a toough time matching pantani. Such as shame as he added colour and some character to the peloton not like todays rirders who are basically robots.

Please have some respect for this great cycling hero and remove the obscure picture of Marco lying dead in the hotel ..it achieves nothing.. RIP Marco 🙏

acc. to the death list the shit they took must have been really dangerous,

It's so sad, this story is the once again proof that this success wasn't worth... He won a tour de France, he hided all doping, he was an intoxicated soul. How bad is drug; so obvious...

Well yes talented but built to climb at 130 lbs and very light high end bikes.

Secrets, I never realised his drug taking was a secret?

I was as naive as most UK competition cyclists until the morning of a road race in the Midlands with my Concorde club team Bob and Muriel Maitlland .Gil Taylor told us Tom Simpson had died on Mont Ventoux They had raced with Tom many times so had a good idea of what the UCI had failed to prevent for many decades as was proven by Simpson’s Autopsy The UCI are probably as impotent now as they have always been and have never exposed their financial deal with Armstrong or the involvement of at least two of UCI Past Presidents in corruption that directly caused the preventable deaths of many hundreds of Amateur and Professional cyclists The UCI has failed cycle sport from its formation as the Governing Organisation as inept as Boris Johnson who has been asUK Prime Minister in the same Trough of Deception as the Unfit For Purpose U C I still is!

Corperate business killed pantani. Those In power with money wanting results. As soon as the riders were caught, they disapear like ghosts.

Sounds like simple cocaine psychosis.

Age verified? Come on man...

Lance and Marco were made into scapegoats. Simple. Very sad.

This was Not dark age. It was the golden age!