Every Valentine's Day, now a 22-year ritual, after honoring our love, later in the day, and already hoping for sunset, we wonder what Marco Pantani has most deeply settled - and personally - left behind.

And we write and rewrite this, exclusively for ourselves because for others, so much and too much in 30 years we have put on paper, today as on every Valentine's Day to come. Love is another thing, but the love for a daughter points to the sky. And of Marco Pantani, attached to the heart not like a tattoo on the skin, which a good dermatologist can remove, from the heart no, it will remain etched indelibly like an emblem, that phrase of his, in December 1999.

A chat with him, at the 'Fiordaliso' in Terracina, his teammates and Martinelli, Marco Velo not far away, it was well after the sporting drama of Madonna di Campiglio, his rejected disqualification. 'Marco, what would you say to my daughter Chiara, who was so madly in love with you, after Madonna di Campiglio?'. And his laconic response, looking me in the eyes as I looked at him, his hand icy, 'I would tell her to have her life explained by her father, who claims to know everything about life'.