Pantani dead at 34 Marco Pantani
Photo ©: Sirotti 
The body of 34 year old Marco Pantani has been found dead in a room in Le Rose di Rimini apartments in the Italian Adriatic coastal city of Rimini this afternoon.
According to reports on La Gazzetta dello Sport, Pantani went to Le Rose apartments in viale Regina Elena along the sea front in Rimini a few days ago. The last time anyone saw him was Saturday afternoon. When no-one saw him come down for dinner at 9:30pm, the desk clerk of the hotel called the police. They knocked on the door of his room and found it locked from the inside. They finally gained access and found Pantani’s partially clothed body on the floor next to his bed.
The cause of death is not yet known, although according to initial information from the Rimini police, Pantani did not die a violent death. Italian newsagency *ANSA *is reporting that possible pharmaceutical products were found next to his body.
The coroner will come to examine the scene and there will be an autopsy according to Italian law.
The news of Pantani’s death has swept through the Italian cycling community like lightning, and people are extremely upset to hear it. Italian national coach Franco Ballerini was quoted by La Gazzetta dello Sport as saying that, “This is huge, it doesn’t seem real.”
Italian TV commentator Davide Cassani, who was an old friend of Pantani’s told RAI-TV’s *Sport2 Sera *program that, “I’d like to know what happened…to find words to discribe this is impossible. Marco and I spent a lot of time together, a lot of great moments, but he got into a mess. The last time I spoke to him, in mid-January, he was deeply bitter…he’d changed…he wasn’t the same person I knew. But Pantani brought a lot of new people into cycling and I was asking him when he would come back…but Pantani wasn’t the same anymore. He had become so bitter (towards cycling). And I’m torn up.”
“I’m destroyed…traumatized”, said a shocked Felice Gimondi when he heard the news of Pantani’s death. “Marco paid a high price for all this…for years he was in the eye of the hurricane after he was the number one cyclist in the world. And then he was all alone and fragile.”
At the Giro del Mediterraneo, Domina Vacanze’s Mario Scirea and his teammates were celebrating Mario Cipollini’s win this evening when they heard the news about Pantani. “We’re all very upset”, said Scirea. “It’s a terrible blow and news I would have never expected.”