{"id":428886,"date":"2026-05-02T15:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T15:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/428886\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T15:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T15:16:09","slug":"four-time-paralympic-gold-medallist-and-former-f1-driver-alex-zanardi-dies-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/428886\/","title":{"rendered":"Four-time Paralympic gold-medallist and former F1 driver Alex Zanardi dies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Four-time Paralympic gold-medallist and former Formula One driver Alex Zanardi has died aged 59.<\/p>\n<p>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>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><img decoding=\"async\" height=\"511\" width=\"640\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/four-time-paralympic-gold-medallist-and-former-f1-driver-alex-zanardi-dies.jpg\" alt=\"Alex Zanardi \" data-title=\"Alex Zanardi \" data-copyright-holder=\"PA Archive\" data-copyright-notice=\"PA Archive\/PA Images\" data-credit=\"David Jones\" data-usage-terms=\"\"\/>Alex Zanardi competed in Formula One for five seasons (PA)<\/p>\n<p>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>The death of Zanardi was confirmed on Saturday and sparked an outpouring of tributes.<\/p>\n<p>\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":"Four-time Paralympic gold-medallist and former Formula One driver Alex Zanardi has died aged 59. Born in Bologna, Zanardi&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-428886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428886","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=428886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}