{"id":428604,"date":"2026-05-02T11:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T11:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/428604\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T11:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T11:32:09","slug":"four-time-paralympic-gold-medallist-and-former-f1-driver-alex-zanardi-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/428604\/","title":{"rendered":"Four-time Paralympic gold-medallist and former F1 driver Alex Zanardi dies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Alex Zanardi competed in Formula One for five seasons (PA)\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/6bb24043-b4c0-483f-ab77-c0da12611f4a.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Alex Zanardi competed in Formula One for five seasons (PA)<\/p>\n<p>Press Association<\/p>\n<p>Today at 11:41<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Four-time Paralympic gold-medallist and former Formula One driver Alex Zanardi has died aged 59.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Born in Bologna, Zanardi competed in Formula One for five seasons and achieved a best finish of sixth at the 1993 Brazilian Grand Prix before a major crash in 2001 resulted in both of his legs being amputated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Zanardi recovered from his life-changing operation to become a Paralympic champion, firstly competing in the London Games in 2012 and claiming two gold medals in the para-cycling category before two more followed in Rio de Janeiro four years later.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">A multiple winner at the UCI para-cycling Road World Championships and most recently in 2019 in Emmen, another serious accident a year later resulted in another lengthy lay-off.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The death of Zanardi was confirmed on Saturday and sparked an outpouring of tributes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cThe FIA is saddened to learn of the passing of Alex Zanardi, the former Formula 1 driver, two-time CART champion whose journey from life-changing accident to Paralympics gold medallist made him one of sport\u2019s most admired competitors and an enduring symbol of courage and determination,\u201d a statement read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Zanardi competed in Formula One for five seasons (PA) Press Association Today at 11:41 Four-time Paralympic gold-medallist&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,898,112],"class_list":["post-428604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news-ticker","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}