Carlo Vanzini has pancreatic cancer, the dramatic announcement

Carlo Vanzini chose the pages of Corriere della Sera for a dramatic announcement: a few months ago, and more precisely on June 18, he discovered he had pancreatic cancer. Five years ago, his sister Claudia had died of the very same disease, and now the Sky commentator at 54 has begun his battle: he has already undergone ten chemotherapy sessions and will be eligible for surgery at the end of January. “I wasn’t actually sick, I didn’t notice anything. My Sky colleague Davide Camicioli had posted from the Formula Medicine center in Viareggio, with Dr. Riccardo Ceccarelli. I was thinking of skipping the usual checkup this year, but when I saw him, I called him to tell him that if he had notified me I would have gone with him. In the background, I can hear the doctor suggesting that I show up the following Wednesday…”.

Andrea Gussoni

“First I do an abdominal ultrasound. Lorenzo, the sonographer, tells me right away: we have to talk, there is a lesion; you can catch it, but you have to run. I immediately call my wife Cristina, who despite the shock takes action to book a CT scan and a visit with the surgeon, in Verona. But sister died at San Raffaele, from the same disease. Psychologically, I preferred to be seen elsewhere. The surgeon drew me a picture on a paper and told me about the operation, after chemo. Knowing that I could have surgery gave me a glimpse of light. I decided to talk about it because someone is starting to ask questions. Days ago I trended on X because of my appearance: I am swollen from cortisone, I am bald, I lost my beard… Some acquaintances believed my story of a makeover without blinking an eye. Others wrote on social media to my children: it was Luca who asked me to tell them”.

In the world of Formula 1, which he entered back in 1998, he knew everyone: “Including Senna, him, however, when I was a policeman and I was doing security duty: he came to take a picture with us and jokingly asked us if we wanted to arrest him. Of Schumacher I saw how much he cared about the team. I was very good friends, with the modesty that goes with that word, with Jules Bianchi, who fell asleep in Japan never to wake up again. My team warned him on the way to the Dutch GP. I took off my cap and told them out of the blue. Everyone was great. I don’t believe in a conventional way, I don’t go to church. I went in there to light some candles for my sister. But when I’m in the mountains and I go down to the valley after everybody has gone, I just talk to God”.

“I am optimistic, as Vecchioni sings it, that you will plant an olive tree, still convinced that you will see it bloom”, he concluded.