Around 2,000 mourners filled Padua's Basilica of Santa Giustina on Tuesday for the funeral of the Alex Zanardi, the Italian Formula One driver who became a four-time Paralympic cycling gold medallist after his legs were amputated following a 2001 car-racing accident and who died aged 59 on Friday.
    The Bologna native's handbike was placed beneath the altar for his final farewell and Zanardi's wife Daniela and son Niccolò accompanied his coffin into the church.
    Bologna Mayor Matteo Lepore, Alpine skiing great Alberto Tomba, former Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) President Giovanni Malagò, paralympic fencing champion Bebe Vio, veteran pop star Gianni Morandi, Formula One Group CEO Stefano Domenicali and Luca Pancalli, the former president of the Italian Paralympic Committee, were among the mourners.
    There were also members of Obiettivo3, the association Zanardi founded to promote handcycling, and former Paraguayan soccer player Julio Gonzalez.
    Zanardi visited Gonzalez after he had to have an arm amputated following a car accident in 2005, when he was playing in the Italian second tier for Vicenza.
    "He gave me a tremendous lift," Gonzalez said on Tuesday, referring to Zanardi's visit.
    The funeral took place in Padua because Zanardi had lived in a town in the province, in Veneto, for over 20 years.
    His home town Bologna and the whole of Veneto have declared Tuesday to be a day of mourning.
    Zanardo suffered serious head injuries in a road accident while he was on his handbike during a charity relay event near Siena on June 19, 2020.
    He raced in F1 from 1991 to 1994 and again in 1999, placing sixth in the 1993 Brazilian GP.
    He returned to racing less than two years after losing both of his legs in the 2001 accident in a CART championship race, competing in the European Touring Car Championship in 2003-2004 and then in the World Touring Car Championship between 2005 and 2009, scoring four wins.
    Zanardi then took up handcycling, winning his first senior international handcycling medal, the silver medal in the H4 category time trial at the UCI World Road Para-Cycling Championships, in September 2011.
    In September 2012 he won gold medals at the London Paralympics in the individual H4 time trial and the individual H4 road race, followed by a silver medal in the mixed H1-4 team relay, and in September 2016 he won golds in the road time trial and the mixed team relay at the 2016 Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, along with a silver in the road race.

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