Marco Pantani, the former Tour de France and Giro d'Italia winner who has been plagued by doping accusations and suspensions in recent years, was found dead in a Rimini residence Saturday, colleagues and residence employees said.
Italy's most popular cyclist was found in a room at the apartment-hotel "Le Rose" in this seaside city, said receptionist Paolo Buccellato. He said hotel staff entered Pantani's room sometime after 8pm after he hadn't been seen all day.
PHOTO: AP
Buccellato said he saw medicines strewn about Pantani's room -- on the bed and floor -- and that Pantani was found lying on the ground, wearing just pants. The room, he said, was in disarray.
Prosecutor Paolo Gengarelli told reporters that the medicines included tranquilizers, the ANSA news agency said.
No explanation of death was provided, although news reports said it was not violent. Buccellato said there were no visible signs of injury. An autopsy was scheduled for Monday.
Gengarelli said that since Pantani arrived at the hotel four days ago, he had mostly stayed in his room, often leaving only to eat breakfast and occasionally ordering room-service for lunch.
Buccellato said it was the first time Pantani had checked in at "Le Rose," a modern five-story hotel in the resort city that was swarming with police and onlookers late Saturday.
There was no answer at Pantani's Mercatone Uno team or his management agency Saturday. A man who answered his manager's phone said the reports of Pantani's death were true, and that the cause of death wasn't yet known.
Italian television broke into regular programming to announce the death and ran file footage of some of the bald cyclist's more memorable victories.
"I'm devastated, it's a tragedy of enormous proportions for the entire cycling world," fellow cyclist Mario Cipollini, himself a former world champion, told news agency ANSA.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later
RSS