The summit of Italy's terrifying Mortirolo Climb, renamed after Marco Pantani

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The summit of Italy's terrifying Mortirolo Climb, renamed after Marco Pantani
The fiery ascent of one of the toughest climbs in the Giro d'Italia in 1994 is widely considered one of the most memorable stages in the recent history of the race.

According to local newspaper ValtellinaMobile, officials from the 2 nearby towns of Mazzo and Monno agreed to the formal name change of the summit of the super-zealous climb. Set deep in the Dolomites, Mortirolo peaks out at 1,852 meters above sea level and has ramps of up to 10% on one of those 4 possible approach roads, at least 1 km long, to the top 22.

First worked in 1990, and in 2024 during the last of the previous 16 times, Pantani's attack on Mortirolo at the Giro in 1994 and subsequent victories in Apprica showed the results of the entire race that year. 

In 1994, Miguel Indurán, the previous double overall winner of the Giro d'Italia and the ruler of the Grand Tour in the first half of 10 years, suffered badly and eventually cracked on the next climb of the Varico di Santa Cristina.

The next day, the official newspaper of the Giro, La Gazzetta dello Sport, entitled its race report: Pantani, sei un mito-Pantani, you are a legend. 

Indurain finished the 1994 race in 3rd place overall, followed by the overall winners Evgeny Berzin and Pantani in 2nd place. Then Indurin won another 2 wins at the Tour de France, scoring 5 wins in total, but never returning to the Giro.

The monument to Pantani, who died in 2004, has already been erected on the climb of the town of Pias de Laqua, about 8 km from the summit. The first rider to cross the top of the Giro has also won the Sima Pantani Award. But this latest devotion to Mortirolo's memory of Il Pirata will undoubtedly make the connection between rider and climb even more indelible.

The 2025 Giro d'Italia is widely expected to pass through Mortirolo and Cima Pantani on a stage finished in the nearby town of Bormio. Local authorities are reportedly hoping for a special event to mark the newly re-baptized summit.

It was revealed this week that a little-known Canadian amateur, Jack Burke, took more than a minute from Vincenzo Nibali's Strava record for scaling Mortirolo.

The 29-year-old Burke was 11-16 seconds faster than Nibali's record of 67, 43:In 45 hours I completed one of the toughest climbs in Italy - 1.

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