A look back at the tragedy and emotion of the Italian's death
Image 1 of 6
Bleached hair and the maillot jaune in Paris for Marco Pantani and his Mercatone Uno teammates(Image credit: Sirotti)
The Marco Pantani memorial in his hometown of Cesenatico(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Marco Pantani in action at the 2000 Tour de France where he won two stages prior to withdrawing.(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Marco Pantani in the 1998 Tour de France yellow jersey(Image credit: Getty Images)
Marco Pantani with his mother Tonina in the early years of his career(Image credit: Getty Images)
Thousands of people attended Marco Pantani's funeral (Image credit: Getty Images)
This year, February 14, St Valentine's Day marks 20 years since Marco Pantani was found dead in a Rimini hotel room.
This article was part of a special series of features created a decade ago, in 2014, to look back at Pantani's career and his tragic death. It has been updated, with new photographs added. It was also published in Procycling Magazine.
Anyone who has followed cycling for more than 20 years will remember where they were on Saturday, 14 February 2004, when news broke that Marco Pantani had been found dead in a small Rimini hotel.
The Italian news agency ANSA announced his death at 10:42 pm with a single-sentence news flash. The news spread around the world in minutes.
I was at the Tour Méditerranéen in southern France. Mario Cipollini had won the day’s stage, and I was enjoying dinner with photographer Graham Watson in a tiny Provence hotel in the south of France.
A call from the Reuters news agency shattered the peace – Pantani was dead.
It signalled the start of one of the most intense and emotional days of my career as a journalist.
Get The Leadout Newsletter
The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!
After quickly writing a profile of Pantani, I realised I had to go to Cesenatico. I’d been there for team presentations, training camps and the celebrations when Pantani had won the 1998 Tour de France. This time, it would be for his funeral.
Early the next day, I started to drive across the south of France and northern Italy, stopping to write a story for a British newspaper and other stories for a special issue of Cycling Weekly.
Pantani’s death had struck everybody and was global news.
Arriving in Rimini late on Sunday afternoon, I headed to the mortuary. Along with a handful of Italian journalists, I talked to Felice Gimondi and saw the detached lid of Pantani’s coffin waiting in a room. From behind a door we heard the outpourings of grief of Pantani’s sister Manola and his father Paolo before the chilling noise of the power tool tightening the screws on the coffin lid. It is a moment I will never forget.
I then visited the Residence Le Rose hotel in Rimini, where Pantani had been found. The air was damp, as it often is in February. Rimini seemed a cold, lonely place to die.
In Pantani's hometown of Cesenatico, I visited the church with several other journalists to pay my respects.
We had all known Pantani from the Giro and Tour. We had all been touched by his sensitive character and his success as a rider. However, when Pantani’s mother, Tonina, recognised Alessandra Di Stefano from Italian television, she began to shout at us: “You’re my son’s assassins. You killed him,” waving at us to leave the church.
The day after, during the funeral in the packed chapel along the Cesenatico canel, Pantani’s agent Manuela Ronchi was the last to read out a message, stunning everyone by quoting what Pantani had scribbled on nine pages of his passport a few months previously.
It was a confused defence against those who had demonised him and accused him of doping.
It ended with a call for honesty and a plea for people to speak out, perhaps against doping in the sport. Tragically, Pantani’s final words fell on deaf ears – we now know the doping continued.
Following the ceremony, Pantani’s coffin was carried to the cemetery a kilometre away by several of his former teammates. The crowd walked in silence, accompanying Pantani to his final resting place next to his grandfather Sotero, who had bought him his first racing bike.
It was dark by the time I’d finished writing my stories and been interviewed by several radio stations. I had a four-hour drive home but decided to visit the cemetery one last time.
Pantani’s body had been placed in a concrete tomb above ground, with a plastic cover carrying his name. The cement was still wet. People stood in silence until the cemetery closed at six o’clock.
When I returned to my car, it was impossible not to shed a tear and finally release my own emotions. Pantani was dead, and Italian cycling would never be the same.
The sense of grief and loss in Italy remains even 20 years later.
Stephen is the most experienced member of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. He has been Head of News at Cyclingnews since 2022, before which he held the position of European editor since 2012 and previously worked for Reuters, Shift Active Media, and CyclingWeekly, among other publications.
