|
Fabio Casartelli (August 16, 1970 – July 18, 1995) was an Italian cyclist, who died in a crash on the descent of the Col de Portet d'Aspet, France, during the 15th stage of the 1995 Tour de France. He was born near Como, Italy.
Amateur career Fabio Casartelli showed great promise as an amateur competitive cyclist. He had many important wins and placings between 1990 and 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. 1990 1991 1992 Professional career Casartelli began his career in 1993 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 Team Motorola. He placed sixth in the Spanish Clásica de Almería and third in the second stage of the Spanish Tour of Murcia. Casartelli 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, Steve Swart and Sean Yates. Teams 1993 1994 1995 Death On July 18 during the fifteenth stage of the 1995 Tour de France, Fabio Casartelli and a few other riders crashed on the descent of the Col de Portet d'Aspet in the Pyrenees. Casartelli sustained heavy facial and head injuries and lost consciousness. While being transported via helicopter to a local hospital, he stopped breathing and after numerous resuscitation attempts was declared dead. Many have claimed if Casartelli had been wearing a modern bicycle helmet his life may have been saved, but the impact was not exclusively to the part of the head protected by a helmet, and an impact at nearly 100 km/h (60 mph) has more than twenty times the energy a typical helmet is designed to absorb. After difficult contemplation, the Motorola team continued the Tour de France. The rest of the competitors honoured Fabio by letting his teammates cross the finish line of the next stage first, side by side. The peloton followed behind, riding slowly. 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. Photos of the memorial Articles regarding helmet use and Fabios crash | ||||||||
|
| |||||||||
 |
|
| |