The “Gran Fondo – The first Memorial event for Marco Pantani” took place this weekend. This event was part of the fundraising “Heart Olympics” that collaborated with the Marco Pantani Foundation.

It was a big party where the funds gathered will be given to charity for the Apuano Paediatric Hospital in Massa. Matteo Bobbi didn’t want to miss this event. For one day he took off his track suit and put on a biker’s helmet. The reigning champion of the FIA GT participated in this challenging event together with the top names of cycling like Mario Cipollini and Alessandro Petacchi.

Alexandr Kuschynski, the professional Russian cyclist won the race whereas Matteo Bobbi was forced to retire with only 25 km left to go. After 5 hours of cycling, Matteo had terrible hunger cramps and was forced to stop. For Matteo, this was not only a very hard training day but also an opportunity to help out. The Apuano paediatric hospital will be getting 58 000 € that was collected during the three day event.

Matteo Bobbi

“I happily participated in the event.  They had warned me that it would be tough -  but I didn’t think it was going to that difficult!

When I train at home, I never get to do 5 hours of biking and I never get to do them on such steep hills. It was however a very positive experience that I would like to repeat. On Saturday, I also unexpectedly participated in a soccer match for the national drivers’ team. It was a very intense weekend, a great party in memory of Marco Pantani and a great opportunity to collect some funds to help the children at the Apuano Paediatric Hospital in Massa.”