Marco Pantani, on the way to Madonna di Campiglio, in the 1999 Giro.STEFANO RELLANDINI (REUTERS)
The moments when you hear news that shocks the world you remember them all.
When the Twin Towers fell I was on a swing in the garden.
When the news of Marco Pantani's death broke, I was on the landing of my grandmother's house, going down the stairs.
I still remember that moment, although at the time I barely knew who he really was.
My brother - who was younger than me - often wore a bandana and shouted “W Pantani!”, out of emulation, as children do.
In 2004 I was little more than a child and little did I know that, years later, I would fall in love with cycling completely and open a blog called
E mi alzo sui pedali
('And I rise on the pedals') like the moving song that Stadio dedicated to the Pirate, inspired by the notes found in his hotel room written in his last hours of life.
They say that when Marco Pantani won the Tour de France, Cesenatico, his town, was the navel of the world: millions of people came along the coast to celebrate a kind of national god received in triumph.
We, who could not see Marco on the roads, have this one, great and intimate regret: never having been able to feel the magic of when he looked back imperceptibly and sprinted away, with that way of attacking with his hands down on the pedals.
We have seen photos and videos, but we have missed that moment.
I can't say why young people - even those born after February 14, 2004 - still see Marco Pantani as an idol, it probably has a lot to do with the fact that he seems to have never left.
He even has a fan club waiting for him at every step, cheering him on as if he were still in the peloton and would appear at any moment, alone, as always.
They write
“I tuoi Pirati”
(Your Pirates) on their roads as if he were going to return, as if leaving was just a joke of his, a
pataccata
as they say in his Romagna.
When you climb Mount Carpegna, on a wall it is written “You can only hear your breathing” and anyone who has been there could swear that the pine trees there whisper constantly, in summer and winter, as if someone were really pedaling in silence, alone, on that road.
And when the sky is blue, blue without a single cloud, you think that is how Pantani saw it when he dreamed of the great races in that corner lost in the hills, far from everything.
He was going so fast that they wanted to destroy him, but he, I don't know how, has found a way to remain indestructible.
Forever.
Miriam Terruzzi
is a writer and photographer.
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