Fabio Casartelli was a world-class Italian cyclist, born August 1, 1970 near Como, Italy and died on the roads of the Col de Portet d'Aspet, France, July 18, 1995 in a crash on the descent from that Col during the 15th stage of the Tour de France.

Amateur Career

Fabio Casartelli showed great promise as an amateur competitive cyclist. He had many important wins and placings in 1990-1992, climaxing in winning a gold medal in the 1992 Summer Olympics road race. He finished the 194 km race in 4:35:21, 1 second ahead of the silver medalist Erik Dekker of the Netherlands and 3 seconds ahead of bronze medalist Dainis Ozols of Latvia.

Amateur results: 1990

• Trofia Sironi: first

1991

• Monte Carlo-Alassio: first
• Gemeli Meda: first
• Coppa Casale: first
• GP Capodarlo di Fermo: first
• Trofia Cesab: first

1992

• Olympic Road Race Championship: first (Gold Medal)
• Monte Carlo-Alassio: first
• GP Diano Marina: first
• Coppa Cigogna: first
• Trophia de Mare: first

Professional Career

Starting in 1993, Fabio started his career as a professional cyclist with the team Ariostea. He won a stage in the Settimana Bergamasca race, had a second placing in a stage of the Tour of Switzerland and finished the Giro d'Italia. In 1994 he moved to team ZG-Mobili. For his third professional year, he moved to the Motorola team. He placed sixth in the Spanish Clásica de Almería and a third place finish the second stage of the Spanish Tour of Murcia. Fabio was selected to represent his team for the 1995 Tour de France along with Alvaro Mejia, Frankie Andreu, Lance Armstrong, Steve Bauer, Kaspars Ozers, Andrea Peron, Jack Swart and Sean Yates.

Teams and Professional results:

Teams

• 1993: Team Ariostea
• 1994: Team ZG-Mobili Bottecchia
• 1995: Team Motorola

1993

• Giro d’Italia: 107th overall
• Settimana Bergamasca: first stage 1
• Tour of Switzerland: second stage 5, third stage 2

1994:

• Giro di Toscania: fifteenth overall

1995:

• Classica Costa del Almeria, : sixth overall
• Tour of Switzerland: second stage 1
• Tour of Murcia: third stage 7

Death

On July 18th during the fifteenth stage of the race, Fabio Casartelli and a few other riders crashed on the descent of the Col de Portet d’Aspet in the Pyrenees. Fabio sustained heavy facial and head injuries and lost consciousness. While being transported via helicopter to a local hospital, Fabio stopped breathing and after numerous resuscitation attempts was declared dead. Many have claimed if Fabio had been wearing a modern bicycle helmet his life may have been saved. Others have claimed his injuries were to areas of the head not protected by cycling helmets and the impact from a crash at nearly 100 km/h was so great that no helmet may have prevented a fatal injury. After difficult contemplation, the Motorola team continued the Tour de France. The rest of the competitors honored Fabio by allowing his teammates to win the next stage uncontested. The Société du Tour de France awarded the stage prizes as normal, and the riders donated all the money won that day to a fund established for his family. The Tour later matched that amount, and thousands of individuals, especially in the United States, contributed to the fund.

The Société du Tour de France and the Motorola team placed a memorial stone dedication to Fabio Casartelli on the spot where he crashed. The memorial is a sundial arranged so that the sun's shadow highlights three dates—the dates of his birth and death, as well as the date he won his Olympic gold medal. The crumpled bicycle he was riding at the time of his fatal crash was placed in the chapel at the Madonna del Ghisallo, the site of an important Catholic shrine and museum to cyclists near his home.

External Links

Primary Italian fan site

• http://www.fondazionecasartelli.it/home.html

A site maintained by Torelli Imports of Camarillo, California

• http://www.torelli.com/kom/casartelli.htm

Photos of the memorial

• http://www.bikepyrenees.com/hi/randonnees/sundial.htm
• http://www.mseries.freeserve.co.uk/raid/tn/DSCF0033.JPG.raid-pics.html

Articles regarding helmet use and Fabio's crash

• http://www.bhsi.org/timesart.htm
• http://www.bhsi.org/worcestr.htm