Geschlecht: male
Kurzbiographie: Matt Rendell was born 44 years ago in the English county of Kent. Born to Lancastrian parents, Rendell took three postgraduate degrees and “then being overqualified to do any work and used to living on a student scholarship” decided to become a writer.
He is the author of a number of books including “Kings of the Mountains - How Columbia's Cycling Heroes changed Their Nation's History”; “A Significant Other - Riding the Centenary Tour de France with Lance Armstrong”, a look at the 2003 Tour through the eyes of US Postal domestique Victor Hugo Peña; and the award winning “The Death of Marco Pantani”, and is a member of the UK Television broadcaster ITV's Tour presentation team. Matt Rendell lives in Calne, Wiltshire, England. [from dailypeloton.com]

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The Death of Marco Pantani: A Biography von Matt Rendell

A genuine tragedy of modern times. Rendell superbly accounts for the rapid rise and fall of one of the most exciting cyclists of the recent era.

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Polaris- | 1 weitere Rezension | Jan 26, 2011 |

A significant other : riding the Centenary Tour de… von Matt Rendell

Domestiques are the team riders who can’t win for themselves, but ride for their leaders, preventing breakaways, chasing them down, keeping the pace high in the mountains, and so on. A Significant Other by Matt Rendell (based on Victor de la Pena’s diaries of the 2003 Tour) catches this better than any other. There’s a splendidly geeky section on the physics of the peloton, and a fine chapter in which de la Pena explains his team role in detail on one particular stage.

rel="nofollow" target="_top">http://aroundtheedges.wordpress.com/2009/07/05/some-of-the-best-books-on-bike-ra...… (mehr)

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nextwave | Oct 27, 2010 |

The Death of Marco Pantani: A Biography von Matt Rendell

Although I love professional cycling, despite its flaws, I have delayed reading Matt Rendell’s biography of the Italian climber Marco Pantani, who won the Tour de France and the Giro in 1998, and died of a massive cocaine overdose in a hotel room six years later, dogged by (well-founded) drugs scandals. The book got fine reviews, and Rendell knows the sport well.The reason I put off reading it was that I knew it would depress me.

The best way to summarise this is through a couple of lines in the final chapter:

"Looking back, Marco’s successes, like any number of world records, gold medals, and winning sequences in recent sporting history have a phantom quality. … They weren’t events at all, but phantasmagorical experiences with no clearly definable reality that existed chiefly in the emotions they caused in millions of indivdual minds. The emotion most associated with Marco is euphoria, yet we know now that it was triggered by the poisons that flowed through his veins and made his flamboyant style possible."

It’s worth exploring this further. One of the most exciting sights in cycling is a climber attacking the field and gaining the minutes he needs to win - and Pantani’s stage win at Les Deux Alpes in 1998, when he attacked on a climb in atrocious conditions, descended recklessly, then climbed again, to make enough time on Ullrich to seal his Tour victory - was one of the most exciting days of racing in my lifetime.

But in a (literally) forensic analysis, Rendell demonstrates that Pantani had been blood doping through the use of EPO almost from the start of his professional career. At the same time, he kicks away one of the cycling fans’ supports. Almost all of the successful cyclists in the 1990s used EPO. So the fan’s defence is that EPO use must have levelled the playing field. Rendell suggests that athletes respond differently to EPO, and that Pantani’s success might just suggest that his body was better attuned to the drug.

More at:
http://aroundtheedges.wordpress.com/2009/02/27/reaching-the-heights-touching-the...… (mehr)

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nextwave | 1 weitere Rezension | Apr 9, 2009 |