Alex Zanardi has died, sport mourns an inimitable hero
Alex Zanardi, a symbolic figure in Italian and international sports, has died at age 59. A former racing driver, his life changed dramatically in 2001, when a terrible accident on the track cost him the amputation of both legs. From that moment, however, Zanardi did not stop: he turned tragedy into a new start, becoming an extraordinary Paralympic athlete and a universal example of courage and love for sport and life.
On June 19, 2020, during a charity handbike relay race near Pienza, he was involved in another very serious accident. After a long and complex hospital and rehabilitation journey, he was able to return home in 2021. Today the terrible news: it was the family, together with the Obiettivo3 charity association created by Zanardi himself, who announced Alex’s passing.
Born in Bologna on October 23, 1966, Zanardi distinguished himself already as a boy for his skills behind the wheel, starting with karts and continuing through the minor formulas, until he landed in 1991 in Formula 1: his debut came in September of that year, at the Spanish Grand Prix, with a ninth place in the Jordan. After a brief move to Minardi in 1992, he ran much of the following year in the Lotus, also picking up his only point in the premier open-wheel class with a sixth-place finish at Interlagos.
After another colorless year in Lotus, he chose the jump to the United States that effectively changed his career, beginning in 1996 a partnership with Chip Ganassi, owner of the team of the same name, which led him first to third place in the Cart championship (with the icing on the cake of the marvelous overtake at the Laguna Seca Corkscrew against Bryan Herta on the last lap of the last race, which gave the title to teammate Jimmy Vasser) and then to two consecutive titles, in 1997 and 1998.
In 1999 he returned to Formula 1 with Williams, fresh from the successes of previous years: the FW21’s lack of competitiveness and a harmony in the pits that had never been achieved with Frank Williams himself and teammate Ralf Schumacher led, however, to a colorless season and the decision to dive back into U.S.-made racing after a sabbatical.
It was 2001 that was a watershed year not only in Zanardi’s career, but also in his life: Alex miraculously remained alive after a terrible accident at the Lausitzring on September 15, 2001, but lost both legs and was forced since then to use prosthetics and a wheelchair to walk.
In spite of this, Zanardi never lost his smile, supported by his wife Daniela and, in later years, by his son Niccolò, born in 1998. After a stint back on the track, behind the wheel of touring cars adapted for driving with just his hands, Zanardi discovered handbiking and became so passionate about it that he decided to compete at a high level in Paralympic cycling as well.
He thus built a second, luminous career, winning between 2012 and 2019 a countless amount of national and international titles, including four golds and two silvers at the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Paralympics. In the meantime, having now become an icon capable of transcending the world of sports, he participated in and hosted television broadcasts, got involved as an actor and voice actor, and wrote four books about his life and experience.
On June 19, 2020, his handbike collided with a truck during a charity relay race near Pienza, near Siena. Undergoing several emergency surgeries at the nearby Santa Maria alle Scotte polyclinic, he began a very long rehabilitation between Siena, Lecco, Milan, and Padua. During this period, and in the four and a half years that followed, the family always maintained the utmost secrecy about Alex’s condition until the final hours of a man whom, beyond easy rhetoric, it is by no means an exaggeration to call a hero.
