Velochimp: Astrochimp on Cycling

The Marco Pantani Movie finally made it to RAI International only a few days after its Italian premier on RAI. I set my DVR to record it but was unable to get enough time to watch until Monday when I came down with a cold and was at home with a few hours to kill.

The Marco Pantani Movie was produced by RAI and has the same qualities as any major network “Movie of the Week”. The story follows Marco’s life through a flash back that is bookended with Marco smashing a plate glass window during the 1999 Giro at Madonna di Campiglio when he found out that his Hematocrit level was above 50%. The 50% threshold required that Pantani take two weeks off from cycling as a health precaution. This meant that he was booted from the Giro where he was dominating.

Although Pantani was free to race after two weeks he simply could not get over the humiliation of the Giro expulsion. Pantani’s fragile ego could not resolve the fact that many fans would now suspect him of doping. One scene shows Pantani on a usual training ride gaining back his confidence only to stop after seeing a sign that read “Pantani Mitico” with a newly added syringe. The syringe made Pantani end his training session and pack up the bike to the team car.

The movie shows that the expulsion at Madonna di Campiglio started the downward spiral that eventually lead to drug abuse and eventually to his death.

In between we are taken back to see how Pantani-played by a tall lanky kid who has a strong facial resemblance to Pantani-discovers cycling. Pantani as a boy was not good at sports or school. His Grandfather was a big supporter and gave him his first bike (a regular cruiser). One day out on the road he comes across a group of racing cyclist his own age followed by a VW Mini Bus support car. They are out training and one kid rips on Pantani’s bike. Pantani quickly joins the group and crushes them all on the local climb. That is how he meets his childhood mentor “Pino” who immediately salivates at the pure climbing talent that just fell into his lap.

“Pino” supports Pantani as he tears up the amateur circuit. When Pantani is ready to move on the Pros Pino is there to help him sign with Carrera (his first Pro Team). Pino warns Pantani, “whatever you do.. always race clean”. Pantani vows to do that, but years later when Pantani is recovering from the broken leg he suffered in 1994 at Milano -Torino Pino confronts Pantani on his hematocrit level. Pino is ashamed that Pantani turned to using performance enhancing drugs. Pantani says that everyone else is doing it. “What do you want me to do? Race at a disadvantage from everyone else?” That is a huge statement. It basically acknowledges that Pantani with most Pro Cyclist in the peloton in the 90s used performance enhancing drugs.

Most of the career highlights that lead up to Madonna di Campiglio in 1999 are sugary sweet showing Pantani’s rise to fame and fortune which seems relatively easy followed by lots of celebratiosn with his family. All light sugary moments. One thing we see is that Pantani has an ego and a swagger when things are going his way.

The movie gets interesting when Pantani is sent into a tailspin following Madonna di Campiglio. He refuses to race. He is tormented by paranoia associated with cocaine use and the embarrasment of Madonna di Campiglio. His girlfriend Cristina wakes in the middle of the night to find Pantani trashing the furniture looking underneath for microphones or any bugs. Cristina calms an hysterical Pantani. Another scene involved Francesco (Pantani’s close friend) finding Pantani holed up in a hotel room that had scribbles of Pantani most tormented thoughts all over the walls. Pantani was shaking in the bath tub mumbling about being paranoid other obvious affects of heavy cocaine use.

The scribbled hotel room scene was probably the best scene of the whole movie because it gives you an unusual insight into what Pantani actually was going through outside of the public eye. The rest of the movie seems a bit disjointed as other moments such as Pantani’s 2001 win on Ventoux vs Armstrong was shown but without much setup. One minute Marco is suffereing through drug use and his girlfriend leaves him, then it is 2001 and he is back.

The movies does get many technical details such as the clothes and riding style right. All of the actors chosen have an uncanny resemblance to their real life counterparts. They even had a Chiappucci look-alike and someone with Miguel Indurain’s same posture on the bike.

Pantani’s rise and fall make a great story. This movie feels like it was rushed out to provide a biography on the racer that is somewhat clinical. We get to see various vignettes of Pantani’s life and we can put them together, but in the end it feels rushed without much cohesion. The general message is that Pantani turned to cocaine and that was his undoing. He basically turned into a junkie at the end of his life turning to drugs to escape the pain of Madonna di Campiglio and the hypocrasy of performance enhancing drug use in the 1990s.