We were eating pizza with Vallanzasca in Antonella's flower shop, his partner who would soon become his wife. The idea came to Tonina, in the exhausting search for truth for his son Marco Pantani, killed in a Rimini residenceWe were on tour for the book presentation and the Milanese stop was the perfect opportunity.
The conversation finally landed to the tip-off in prison, so that he could bet that Pantani would not win the 1999 GiroThere was a suspicion that it was a joke, inserted by Vallanzasca in his book to make money. However, when he fixed us with his icy gaze and opened his mouth, any doubts vanished.
«If you knew what life is like in prisons – Vallanzasca said in a low voice, with a very firm tone – you would also know that In there, you don't tell lies to someone like me.. And if someone told me to make that bet, which I didn't, it was certainly a good bet. Pantani would not have finished the Giro».
“Different and serious violations”
It was a confirmation. Something shady had happened in Campiglio, but no one in those days thought to listen to Pantani and to trust him after all the good things he'd given them. No one. Zero. They decided he was guilty. Convicted by the press on the basis of an unreliable and improperly executed check. Why?
«Thanks to the investigative activity carried out by the Anti-Mafia Commission and in particular by the Committee coordinated by Senator Endrizzi, it has been ascertained that numerous anomalies marked the event that led to the exclusion of the athlete Marco Pantani from the Giro d'Italia in Madonna di Campiglio, on 5 June 1999: There were several serious violations of the rules established so that the checks carried out on the riders were genuine and as free as possible from the risk of alterations", it states in a note the President of Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission Nicola Morra in presenting the new work just published.
That red thread
By dint of insisting, Tonina has arrivedHis voice was supported by that of the most powerful media who have always believed in Marco, with Davide De Zan in the lead and Le Iene as supportThe Anti-Mafia Commission has done nothing but to line up all the elements that we have already talked about on several occasionsAnd the picture suddenly became clear even to those who had bought into the opposing theses.
The report is composed of 48 pages, with no new elements. It's just that seeing everything together has a certain effect. It speaks of Campiglio and Rimini and, as has been said a hundred thousand times, it is no longer excluded a priori that the two places are somehow connectedWhen Tonina and I toured Italy telling Marco's story, since I'm not a showman, I always resorted to the same opening line. Those who happened to be there may remember it. "There's a thin red line," I said, "that connects Rimini to Madonna di Campiglio..."
The correct times
The report, printed on Senate letterhead, shows that red line. And even if it's too late to give Marco back and it will be impossible to give him that Giro – simply because he didn't finish that Giro – it's the way to open our eyes and realize that His struggling to get back to the surface was dictated not by delirium, but by the impotence of a man condemned to death for an act he did not commit..
«When carrying out checks on athletes in Madonna di Campiglio – it reads – the protocol signed by the UCI with the hospital responsible for carrying them out was not respectedIn particular, from the Commission's work, it emerged that when placing the label on the test tube containing Marco Pantani's blood sample the rules imposed to guarantee their anonymity were not followed, as other individuals were present, other than the UCI inspector who should have been the only one to know the number marking the test tube.
«Contrary to what has been stated in court, the hypothesis of tampering with the blood sample, in addition to providing a valid scientific explanation for the results of the blood tests, is compatible with the temporal data ascertained by the Commission's investigation: correctly placing the collection time for Marco Pantani at 7,46am, therefore more than an hour earlier than previously believed, a manipulation of the test tube is possible.
«This hypothesis – continues Morra – is also still more plausible in light of the information provided by Renato Vallanzasca – confirmed by other elements acquired by the parliamentary inquiry body – which reveal the strong interests of the Camorra in the sporting event, the subject of clandestine betting, and its intervention to overturn the result by excluding Marco Pantani, whose victory was now almost certain."
Superficial and hasty
They said that there would not have been time to tamper with the test tube, but there was time, indeed. And just as they disregarded protocols in Madonna di Campiglio, the investigators' actions in Rimini were equally superficial and inexplicably hasty. We wrote it. We said it. But they still didn't care.
«The choices and behaviors implemented by the investigators appear questionable – says the report. First of all, the hasty conclusion that Marco Pantani's death was accidental or even the result of suicide, which was also reached on the assumption that he had remained isolated for several days until his death, with the consequent exclusion of liability of third parties».
«The question remains open – we read – that the rider's family has been asking for years: It is truly certain that Marco Pantani died from the voluntary or accidental ingestion of lethal doses of cocaine, also connected to the use of psychotropic drugs?
«The elements that emerged from the investigation carried out by this Parliamentary Commission allow us to affirm that a different reconstruction of the causes of the athlete's death does not constitute a "mere abstract possibility that can be hypothesized in literature and in newspaper articles" and must induce the investigator to scrutinize every aspect of the affair without neglecting the possibility that not everything has been duly investigated, possibly seeking the reasons for this".
As we wrote years ago, Marco was denied his trust even at the moment of his death. Wiretaps conducted among Camorra informants add further evidence to an already clear picture. Every attempt to divert, cover up, or tell a lie as if it were true was yet another stab in the back.
Lady Luck
The same scheme, in Campiglio as in Rimini: the same victim, a confused evidentiary framework made even more illegible by the negligence or complicity of those who should have clarified the situation, the one-sided support of certain press and the popular condemnation dictated by misinformation.
The story of Marco Pantani from 5 June 1999 to 14 February 2004 was above all this, in a country populated by shadows and ghosts, which after 40 years reopens the case of Emanuela Orlandi. In her case too the feeling that there are people out there who know the truth dominates and so far he has remained crouched in the shadow of those who have had the advantage of protecting him.
For those who have always believed in it, This story will forever be the cause of an anger that never goes away.We are consoled by the fact that, one way or another, all of this will have served to restore Marco's dignity and Tonina's some peace.
«The Rimini Public Prosecutor's Office – the report concludes – has reopened the investigation; We hope that, also with regards to the events in Madonna di Campiglio, there is a desire and the possibility of getting to the bottom of the matter., whatever the scenario that unfolds and whoever is involved. For Justice to be, as in the images that represent it, a blindfolded goddess capable of fulfilling her task, whoever she faces».
