WEBVTT 00:00:07.629 --> 00:00:11.029 Hi guys and welcome back. This is day 16 of my 00:00:11.029 --> 00:00:14.830 100 days of growth on Bloom Talks. Today's episode 00:00:14.830 --> 00:00:18.530 is one of those stories. It's about Alex Zanardi, 00:00:19.730 --> 00:00:24.309 racing driver, double car championship, Paralympic 00:00:24.309 --> 00:00:27.489 gold medalist and frankly one of the most relentless 00:00:27.489 --> 00:00:30.929 humans on the planet. He lost both his legs in 00:00:30.929 --> 00:00:34.649 2001 crash that should have ended his life and 00:00:34.649 --> 00:00:38.200 then he went on to win at life again. This isn't 00:00:38.200 --> 00:00:40.920 just about sport, it's about identity, purpose, 00:00:41.520 --> 00:00:46.119 and a very practical art of starting again without 00:00:46.119 --> 00:00:50.340 waiting to feel ready. Alex Onardi was born in 00:00:50.340 --> 00:00:54.979 October 23rd, 1966 in Italy. He grew up in a 00:00:54.979 --> 00:00:58.079 family that valued grit and resourcefulness, 00:00:58.359 --> 00:01:01.799 and he found his way into karting as a teenager. 00:01:02.359 --> 00:01:07.120 There are even lovely legends about his DIY approach 00:01:07.120 --> 00:01:11.780 to early carts when he was a kid. His path to 00:01:11.780 --> 00:01:15.379 the very top was not a straight line, he fought 00:01:15.379 --> 00:01:19.700 his way there through the European ladder Formula 00:01:19.700 --> 00:01:24.400 3, then Formula 3000 and eventually Formula 1 00:01:24.400 --> 00:01:28.140 in the early 1990s. The results in Formula One 00:01:28.140 --> 00:01:32.000 were mixed, some bright moments including a 0 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:37.579 .46 at the 1993 Brazilian Grand Prix, but no 00:01:37.579 --> 00:01:40.819 podiums and plenty of mechanical heartache. Still, 00:01:41.000 --> 00:01:44.340 his feedback, racecraft and stubborn optimism 00:01:44.340 --> 00:01:47.799 made him one of those drivers other drivers respected. 00:01:48.599 --> 00:01:51.299 And then he did the thing that changed everything. 00:01:51.739 --> 00:01:55.780 He left Formula One for America. In the kart 00:01:55.780 --> 00:02:00.319 championship, think indie cars of the era, Alex 00:02:00.319 --> 00:02:03.719 didn't just do well. He won the whole thing twice, 00:02:04.120 --> 00:02:10.680 back to back in 1997 and then 1998 with chip 00:02:10.680 --> 00:02:15.000 racing. He became a fan favorite for fearless 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:18.919 overtakes, late race charges and those iconic 00:02:18.919 --> 00:02:21.879 post -win donuts on the front straights. Yes, 00:02:21.879 --> 00:02:26.569 the car donuts, not the glazed kind. sadly. But 00:02:26.569 --> 00:02:30.349 2001, after a tough Formula One return with Williams, 00:02:30.729 --> 00:02:34.889 he'd come back to kart and on a September afternoon 00:02:34.889 --> 00:02:38.710 in Germany, with his grandstands full and the 00:02:38.710 --> 00:02:42.629 season winding down, everything changed again. 00:02:43.590 --> 00:02:49.210 September 15th, 2001, Euro Speedway in Germany, 00:02:49.650 --> 00:02:53.590 late in the race, Alex left the pits on a cold 00:02:53.590 --> 00:02:57.449 tyres. The car snapped, slid across the grass 00:02:57.449 --> 00:03:03.689 and came to rest sideways on the oval. Alex Tagliani 00:03:03.689 --> 00:03:09.870 at 200 miles per hour had no time to avoid him. 00:03:10.090 --> 00:03:13.009 The impact tore the car in half. It was one of 00:03:13.009 --> 00:03:16.469 those moments that makes even seasoned medics 00:03:16.469 --> 00:03:21.199 go silent. Track doctors, Terry and Steve, later 00:03:21.199 --> 00:03:24.280 described the scene as like a bomb had gone off. 00:03:24.860 --> 00:03:29.620 Both arteries were severed. The blood loss was 00:03:29.620 --> 00:03:33.639 catastrophic, around 70 to 75 % of the blood 00:03:33.639 --> 00:03:37.319 volume, and his heart had stopped more than once. 00:03:37.639 --> 00:03:41.639 And yet, they got him back. He was airlifted 00:03:41.639 --> 00:03:45.479 to Berlin. Surgeons worked for hours. Both legs 00:03:45.479 --> 00:03:48.580 were amputated to save his life. If you ever 00:03:48.580 --> 00:03:52.539 wonder whether trauma teams are real life superheroes, 00:03:52.939 --> 00:03:58.719 yes, yes they are. He survived, barely, and then 00:03:58.719 --> 00:04:02.060 he started the long work of building a new life. 00:04:02.740 --> 00:04:06.080 When Alex woke up he used humor to take back 00:04:06.080 --> 00:04:08.659 the room. It's not that he didn't understand 00:04:08.659 --> 00:04:11.659 the gravity, he just refused to let the worst 00:04:11.659 --> 00:04:15.340 thing in his life get the last word. He shifted 00:04:15.340 --> 00:04:19.339 his questions from Why me to, okay, what can 00:04:19.339 --> 00:04:22.079 I do now? If you've ever coped with something 00:04:22.079 --> 00:04:25.339 awful by cracking a choke at the wrong moment, 00:04:25.800 --> 00:04:28.180 you're among friends. I do that all the time. 00:04:28.759 --> 00:04:31.899 He learned to move again, to balance again, to 00:04:31.899 --> 00:04:34.819 exist in the body that felt unfamiliar. And he 00:04:34.819 --> 00:04:37.699 attacked rehab with the same focus that he used 00:04:37.699 --> 00:04:42.740 in racing. Data, goals, progress, repeat. Therapists 00:04:42.740 --> 00:04:46.360 sometimes had to make him stop training. Of course 00:04:46.360 --> 00:04:50.180 they did, it's Alex, and he wanted to get back 00:04:50.180 --> 00:04:53.699 to the way things were, or a new way, a new version 00:04:53.699 --> 00:04:57.000 of him. And then a new idea arrived, maybe speed 00:04:57.000 --> 00:05:01.620 wasn't over, maybe speed just needed new equipment. 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:07.759 20 months after the crash, Alex returned to the 00:05:07.759 --> 00:05:13.100 lawsuit ring, I'm probably pronouncing that wrong, 00:05:13.560 --> 00:05:19.050 to finish what the wreck interpreted. The 13 00:05:19.050 --> 00:05:22.610 laps he never got to complete, he drove a specially 00:05:22.610 --> 00:05:27.069 prepared champ car with hand controls, ran at 00:05:27.069 --> 00:05:31.250 real speed quick enough for a top five grid time 00:05:31.250 --> 00:05:35.389 on the day and parked it with a kiss on the bodywork. 00:05:36.069 --> 00:05:39.290 Tell me that image doesn't live rent free in 00:05:39.290 --> 00:05:43.009 your head right now. He then raced touring cars 00:05:43.009 --> 00:05:47.649 with BMW, and even won races with a hand -controlled 00:05:47.649 --> 00:05:51.129 style, because of course he did. But the next 00:05:51.129 --> 00:05:54.870 chapter, the one that went global, wasn't on 00:05:54.870 --> 00:06:00.629 four wheels. Alex found hand cycling. It sparked 00:06:00.629 --> 00:06:03.490 the old competitive fire in him. He trained, 00:06:03.689 --> 00:06:06.370 tinkered, and improved until he qualified for 00:06:06.370 --> 00:06:11.589 the London 2012 Paralympics. At Brands Hatch, 00:06:11.649 --> 00:06:15.550 a circuit he knew intimately from his car racing 00:06:15.550 --> 00:06:22.009 days. He won gold in the H4 time trial, added 00:06:22.009 --> 00:06:25.610 gold in the H4 road races and took silver in 00:06:25.610 --> 00:06:30.290 the team relay. His celebrations lifting the 00:06:30.290 --> 00:06:35.189 hand cycle over his head was pure Zanardi theatre. 00:06:35.709 --> 00:06:40.329 He wasn't done though, in Rio 2016 in his 50s 00:06:40.329 --> 00:06:45.680 he won gold in the H5 time trial. Gold in the 00:06:45.680 --> 00:06:50.339 mixed team relay and silver in the H5 road race. 00:06:50.759 --> 00:06:54.600 Age is a number, determination is the fuel. He 00:06:54.600 --> 00:06:58.139 kept winning world titles in between because 00:06:58.139 --> 00:07:01.360 why settle down when you can keep collecting 00:07:01.360 --> 00:07:05.600 jerseys? In June 2020, during a hand cycling 00:07:05.600 --> 00:07:08.800 event in Tuscany, Alex collided with a truck 00:07:08.800 --> 00:07:11.399 and suffered severe head and facial injuries. 00:07:11.959 --> 00:07:14.839 He underwent multiple brain surgeries and a lengthy 00:07:14.839 --> 00:07:18.800 coma. Updates were cautious and rare, but there 00:07:18.800 --> 00:07:23.660 were hopeful moments. Signs of response communication 00:07:23.660 --> 00:07:26.759 with family and then it news that after 18 months 00:07:26.759 --> 00:07:31.000 he was home to continue rehabilitation with a 00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:35.300 fighter spirit working on physical neurological 00:07:35.300 --> 00:07:41.339 and speech therapy his wife daniella is a powerhouse 00:07:41.339 --> 00:07:45.939 public updates remained limited the family had 00:07:45.939 --> 00:07:49.290 asked for privacy and fair enough What we do 00:07:49.290 --> 00:07:52.629 know now is that he's home, around his people, 00:07:52.649 --> 00:07:56.129 continuing this long rehab grind, still moving 00:07:56.129 --> 00:08:00.730 forward in the way he always had. Recovery isn't 00:08:00.730 --> 00:08:03.389 passive, he turned rehab into a project plan, 00:08:03.689 --> 00:08:07.610 data, goals, micro wins. Closure is something 00:08:07.610 --> 00:08:11.910 you build, 13 laps at that ring, that's art. 00:08:12.610 --> 00:08:14.870 That's choosing the ending you can live with. 00:08:15.149 --> 00:08:18.110 Joy is allowed with the donuts, the celebrations, 00:08:18.269 --> 00:08:21.250 the theatre. He kept it fun and you don't have 00:08:21.250 --> 00:08:24.649 to be fearless to be brave. And a quote I love 00:08:24.649 --> 00:08:28.990 from London 2012 when a reporter asked about 00:08:28.990 --> 00:08:32.049 racing five times faster at Brown's Hatch in 00:08:32.049 --> 00:08:36.210 the old days. Alex Grinden said, I'm Alex Zanardi. 00:08:36.970 --> 00:08:41.190 I always have to come up with something. If you've 00:08:41.190 --> 00:08:45.309 been putting off Your thing, because timing's 00:08:45.309 --> 00:08:48.750 not perfect, consider this your nudge. You do 00:08:48.750 --> 00:08:52.429 not have to wait to feel fearless. You just have 00:08:52.429 --> 00:08:56.289 to refuse to stop. This was day 16 of my 100 00:08:56.289 --> 00:08:59.309 Days of Growth. If Alex's story hits you like 00:08:59.309 --> 00:09:02.549 it hit me, follow the show, share it with a friend, 00:09:02.710 --> 00:09:06.509 and come back tomorrow when we're building more 00:09:06.509 --> 00:09:11.309 courageous stories. Until then, stay safe, keep 00:09:11.309 --> 00:09:13.759 growing, and Be gentle with yourself.