By Graham Healy
Following on from the release of The Armstrong Lie, another feature-length documentary is due to hit our screens in the next couple of weeks.
Pantani: The Accidental Death of a Cyclist will tell the story of the man who won the 1998 Tour de France which started in Dublin.
The tenth anniversary of the death of the Italian passed last Valentines Day, and the film will tell the story of his rise to the very top of the sport and his subsequent downfall.
After taking the Tour de France his world fell apart in a haze of performance enhancing drugs and cocaine and he was found dead six years later in an Italian hotel room.
The Italian still polarizes opinion amongst cycling fans, with some holding him up as one of the great climbers ever, whilst others feel it is difficult to know how talented he really was, due to his use of performance enhancing drugs from an early age.
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The film combines race archive footage, reconstructions and features interviews with friends, family and other cyclists such as Greg LeMond and Evgeni Berzin.
We’ll keep you informed on whether the film gets an Irish cinema release.
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The official poster for the new film. We'll keep you posted on any Irish release.
Pantani in Tour de France yellow. His 1998 overall win was his finest moment though his palmares are open to the charge of arising from a fake career, given his high dependency on performance enhancing drug for his entire career.
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Fallen from grace: Left to right, Jan Ullrich, Bjarne Riss, Richard Virenque and Pantani in the 1997 Tour de France.
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