Road Bike Racing - Denis Zanette

Since no one else did, I will start a thread on the loss of one of the good guys - Denis Zanette. Solid, altruistic rider; from all accounts a great guy; family man; and a respected and valued member of the Fassa Bortolo team.

Zanette died suddenly on January 10, at the age of 32, while paying the bill in his dentist's front office. Apparent cause of death was a congenital heart problem - his father and grandfather succumbed in similar circumstances. Final results of toxicology exams will take about a month, but he was not thought to be a drug user. That could prove to be the cruelest irony of all.

Cheers...Gary

I keep an extensive database of riders and teams for my online business. It was an awful/sobering moment when I went in and highlighted his name and then clicked the delete button.

I have wondered why this post didn't appear earlier. Perhaps it is because either reality is scary: that he was doped and it killed him, or that sometimes young people in their physical prime just die.

Maybe it wasn't posted here because it has been well reported in much more depth on cyclingnews.com

Any death is tragic and his character has been well remembered by those that knew him.
I don't see any irony in dying suddenly from a family medical condition.

Maybe a better topic is Fagnini's inappropriate comments or the state of cycling that is so poor, a dead man's home is searched for drugs when there is no evidence of use.

I agree, that really is terrible. I mean I can understand the assumption of dope. I read about a 19 year old belgian cyclist who died a few months ago, but I never heard about what caused it. I also jumped to the 'EPO' conclusion, due to his being so young.

Apparently Zanette's father died that way and it was a congenital heart condition. If he'd been a soccer player, no one would have thought of dope. But this does happen. A friend of mine from high school told me about a friend of her family who, at age 37, keeled over and died while playing hockey- he had some sort of valve defect in his heart and hadn't known about it.

RacerX,

I couldn't agree more about the Fagnini comments. Just disgusting. Everyone knew that there would be an autopsy. If it was shown that drugs were involved then there should be an open dialogue about that, but to jump the gun and run off at the mouth was simply ridiculous on his part. And cruel to the family.