"Sport should mean life, not death. Sport should be beautiful and healthy. I sent my son out to play sport because I thought sport meant health and good company. But sport isn't always those things. It isn't."
-Tonina Pantani (Marco's mother)
I post a spoiler, why? Because it sums the film up, and offers an insight and incentive to see how the film makers take you there.
I agree with Grabau, it isn't the best film, sensationalized. Melodramatic footage bordering on cheesey. I think it detracted from the story not added to it. The syringes and vials...
Could be been crafted to be an even more powerful message, but as it is, there is enough there that someone who was a fan, a student of the sport, knows what was going on enough to fill in the lines of the story themselves. Marco's mafia comment, wanting to quit.
Doper? Undoubtedly yes. Was he at the leve of directing the doping and controling it and mastering like others? I don't think so, Neive on my part? Maybe. I think he did it because he was forced to. That's my opinon. It seems, not just from the film maker's crafting of an opinion after watching the film, that it bothered him a bit. Maybe that's just me wanting it to be that way.
Who's to say. Pharmstrong comes across again as a bully, an asshole. But in a worse way than Hinault did in the Bager film with Lemond.
Maybe a film needs to be made looking at this story and the rest of them from the purely doping side, but then it seems hard to spin it in a compelling way, it is just too multi-faceted.
Sport isn't just sport. It is entertainment and we all know that. It takes money to make the sport happen. At the amateur level most of the funding is by the participants. But even then it is tough to make it happen. People though often lose sight of the facts that there are exceptional people. One in a million, who can do great things. With genetic gifts that rivals can't even dope to get close to.
Hard work will get you pretty far. Passion is absolutely required. Esp for a sport such as ours. The odds of a true champion coming into cycling with both all the genetic gifts and the passion is rare. Rarer still in a country such as the USA where top athletes find other sports, never really given the chance to try out cycling. Is the talent here? Indeed. Look at Lemond. The doping seemed to level the playing field in a way. brought everyone up to the same plateau, where odds of winning were less about who was strongest, and more about who had the best system in place, who played the game that wasn't part of the sport the best.
Maybe we can hope that opressive victories are a sign of cleaner riding. There certainly can be plenty of drama on a stage by stage basis, and with no certainty finishing and winning a tour is a remarkable acheivement. You have to finish. Look at this year.
Why do we do this, how can we still be fans. Maybe because we know there are clean riders, we know that when you have that magic day... it is addictive. We are all really addicts in a way. But having a healthy and clear outlook on our abilities, and potential is critical. With few exceptions, there will always be someone faster, stronger and better than you. Maybe they are younger, maybe they are luckier that day, maybe who knows what. There are so many variables in the sport. But also so much to love.
Sit down and watch the film though. It isn't great, but it is certainly worth watching at least once.
