Formula One racing driver who took up hand-cycling after an accident and went on to become a paralympic gold medallist
Alex Zanardi, who has died aged 59, was a Formula One driver and two-times champion in Cart (previously IndyCar); he was also a paralympian who won four gold medals as a hand-cyclist. Perhaps above all he was esteemed as an inspirational figure who reinvented his life after losing both legs in a racing accident in 2001.
In September that year, Zanardi was competing in a Cart race at Lausitzring in north-east Germany, the first time the American series raced in Europe, and was leading the race when he made a late refuelling stop. He lost control while exiting the pits, spun across the track and was hit broadside-on by Alex Tagliani. The impact sheared Zanardi’s car in half. “Part of the car stayed with me, and the other part left, with parts of me in it,” Zanardi recalled in his autobiography My Story (2004).
Zanardi almost bled to death, losing all but one litre of his blood. With his left leg severed at the thigh and the right at the knee, he was saved only by the decisive action of the doctors Terry Trammell and Steve Olvey, who had him helicoptered to an intensive care unit in Berlin. His heart stopped three times before he got there.
