Fourteenth February 2004, Valentine's Day: the body of Marco Pantani lies in room D5 of the 'Le Rose' residence in Rimini.
He had turned 34 a month and a day ago.
The man with legs of steel and infinite lungs, the climber capable of winning the Giro d'Italia and the Tour De France in the same year, 1998, taming the Alpe d'Huez, the Galibier, the Mortirolo between two wings of an adoring crowd, he had left alone, depressed, in the anonymous room of an equally anonymous hotel.
The autopsy revealed that death occurred in the late afternoon.
It was caused by pulmonary and cerebral edema due to an overdose of cocaine and psychotropic drugs.
Twenty years later, the millions of fans that he had made fall in love with him all over the world always remember him with the bandana tied on his forehead, the Pirate grin on his face, his shots that burned the energy of his opponents, the pink jersey like a flag.
Alone against everyone, capable of making the heart beat faster, of making people cry and rejoice together.
This is why his fans loved him when he was alive and venerated him when he was dead, despite the accusations of doping, cocaine and doubts.
Despite the bad way he left.
Full of desperation: he, Pantani, one of the greatest Italian cyclists ever.
After being suspended from the 1999 Giro d'Italia due to high hematocrit, he returned to racing, achieving two stage victories at the 2000 Tour de France, against Lance Armstrong.
Then, however, the belief that he was the victim of a plot had taken over, to the point of distancing him from his world.
So he had gone from glory to mud.
Sports history is rich in myths, that of cycling in particular.
Pantani is, in his own right, in the empyrean of Coppi and Bartali.
The beginning of his climb to the top of the ranks was with his mother Tonina's old bike.
The young people of the Cesenatico cycling group had never seen that skinny boy who, already in his first stride, leads everyone uphill.
When he signs his first professional contract Davide Boifava tells him: 'Remember that I gave you a nice deal'.
He replies: 'Look, you made the deal, because one day I will win the Giro and Tour'.
Marco will keep his word.
The start was difficult, held back by a long series of injuries.
In '95 he was hit by a car and goodbye to the pink race.
He bets everything on the Tour de France and on Alpe d'Huez scores the first pearl of his legendary career.
In October of that year, after finishing third in the World Championship, another accident forced him into a long hospital stay.
Bad luck didn't let him go and at the '97 Giro a cat crossed his path and made him fall, forcing him to abandon.
Once again the Tour is the lifesaver, with another magnificent victory on Alpe d'Huez and the final podium behind Ulrich and Virenque.
The golden year was 1998, when Pantani definitively entered the Olympus of the greatest, conquering the Giro and Tour, with the memorable stages of Montacampione, Galibier and Les Deux Alpes.
1999, after other great undertakings on the rise (Gran Sasso, Oropa, Pampeago), marks the beginning of the decline: on 5 June, after the Campiglio stage, checks reveal a hematocrit beyond the tolerance margins.
It's not doping but it's enough to take him out of the race.
Marco is stunned, scared: "I got up, after so many injuries, and went back to running. This time, however, it will be very difficult for me."
Depression now accompanies Pantani and when he returns to the competition the shadow of the champion remains.
He retired in 2003 to cure his cocaine addiction.
The rest is news and a date: 14 February 2004. He had attacked Pavel Tonkov, demolished Evgenij Berzin and Laurent Jalabert, destroyed Jan Ullrich, but he had not managed to tame his ghosts.
Yet, 20 years later, the memory of that special man is not tarnished.
The myth will keep him alive forever.
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