{"id":12822,"date":"2026-05-05T12:08:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T12:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/12822\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T12:08:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T12:08:19","slug":"thousands-at-funeral-for-italian-auto-champ-and-paralympic-gold-medalist-alex-zanardi-auto-racing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/12822\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands at funeral for Italian auto champ and Paralympic gold medalist Alex Zanardi | Auto Racing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PADUA, Italy (AP) \u2014 Thousands of fans have attended the funeral for <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/alex-zanardi-death-99d36ea9798b04c6e26fb688514464d5\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Alex Zanardi<\/a>, the Italian auto racing champion-turned-Paralympic gold medalist who died last week at 59.<\/p>\n<p>Zanardi\u2019s handbike was placed near the altar inside the basilica in Padua where the service was held on Tuesday, and his hand cycling teammates sat in the front row near his wife, Daniela, and son, Niccol\u00f2.<\/p>\n<p>Also in attendance were Stefano Domenicali, the president and CEO of Formula One, skier Alberto Tomba, Paralympian Bebe Vio and a host of politicians and other officials.<\/p>\n<p>In 2020, <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/zanardi-transferred-to-padua-hospital-5-months-after-crash-c4a9d903ad85ce29fc526dbe5db0da5d\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Zanardi was seriously injured<\/a> in a handbike accident after crashing into an oncoming truck during a relay event in Tuscany. Zanardi suffered serious facial and cranial trauma in the crash and was put in a medically induced coma.<\/p>\n<p>Nearly 20 years earlier, <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/it-was-deathly-quiet-witnesses-recall-zanardis-crash-3300d5b41ed84e4aac4035f4d39c0490\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Zanardi lost both of his legs<\/a> in an auto racing crash.<\/p>\n<p>One fan inside the church held up a sign that said, \u201cFarewell Alex, your legend will never die.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Zanardi won two championships in CART \u2014 1997 and 1998 \u2014 in the United States, and also competed in F1.<\/p>\n<p>He won four gold medals and two silvers at the 2012 and 2016 Paralympics, competed in the New York City Marathon and set an Ironman record.<\/p>\n<p>Zanardi died on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>AP sports: <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/sports\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/apnews.com\/sports<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n                Success! An email has been sent to  with a link to confirm list signup.\n            <\/p>\n<p>\n                Error! There was an error processing your request.\n            <\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PADUA, Italy (AP) \u2014 Thousands of fans have attended the funeral for Alex Zanardi, the Italian auto racing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9348,9599,9598,9600,5,9414,129],"class_list":["post-12822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-italy","tag-alex-zanardi-funeral","tag-automobile-racing","tag-formula-one-racing","tag-funerals-and-memorial-services","tag-italy","tag-parasports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}