MotoGP | GP San Marino, Pecco: “Rodman made the difference and he didn’t give a damn”
The run-up to the title MotoGP by Francesco Bagnaia passes, after three consecutive victories, for his home GP where he will try to conquer the fourth consecutive success. During yesterday’s qualifying day, Pecco also presented his helmet for his “home GP”. The helmet replicates one of Dennis Rodman’s most iconic hair cuts showed off on an NBA parquet. On social media and during the post-qualifying press conference, however, he was attacked by some of our colleagues for the “off-court” events in which the former NBA star is involved.
UNDER THE REFLECTORS, ON AND OFF THE TRACK
The helmet of Francesco Bagnaia did not go unnoticed as he celebrates his home race here in Misano with a helmet dedicated to Dennis Rodman. Some colleagues, mostly foreigners said, said the Piedmontese for this choice first on social media and then during the post-qualifying press conference. After the questions about the performance on the track the word was passed to the journalists who immediately went to the point:
I wanted to ask you something about your helmet for this home GP. It is dedicated to Dennis Rodman, a man who beat a woman …
Pecco immediately interrupted the journalist explaining his choice: “I’ll stop you right before you finish the question. I chose this helmet only for its role in the sport. Not as far as his life off the pitch is concerned“.
Our colleague continued: In addition to physically assaulting his wife, Rodman boasts that he is the best friend of Kim Jong-un, the dictator of North Korea. Don’t you think it’s not a good sign to dedicate a helmet to a man who has such a dark side in his life? He is not a good character to promote for young people.
“I know, but it’s like I said. I chose him because for how my situation is now I have to think outside the box for the situation in which I am in this championship. I chose him because I’m an NBA fan, and as an athlete in his sport he made a difference when he was at the top of his career. I certainly didn’t choose him for his ideas off the pitch. I repeat, I chose him because when he played he was one who made a difference and I don’t care that he did out of his sport.“.
A FURTHER CLARIFICATION THEN TO THE ITALIAN PRESS
Pecco can you speak better about the choice of helmet?
“It is absolutely not to refer to past events. I chose the helmet because I liked it a lot on a sporting level. It made a difference and he gave a little bit of it in certain situations and that’s a bit what I have to try to do in this phase of the championship. Going out of the box a bit, as it happened today. So I chose him for that reason there, what he does off the pitch I don’t give a damn. Everyone is free to lead their own life and that’s what I think journalists should understand in certain situations“.
Temperamentally, however, he was the opposite of you on the pitch. You are a very calm and peaceful one, he was a beast.
“His role was just that, he didn’t give a damn about scoring points. He could do it, he did it in the past but his main role was to be a rebounder and a defender and in that he made a difference.“.
RODMAN IS HUMAN AND HUMANS CAN BE WRONG
One thing is certain, the “English-speaking” colleagues have definitely taken Pecco’s helmet too seriously for this MotoGP race. There are those who have come to write on Twitter: “Fortunately, Pol Pot was not a good tennis player“. We have the highest esteem of these colleagues for the work they have done and still do in the MotoGP paddock over the years. But I find it incredible how you can think of comparing a ruthless dictator with an athlete who, like so many, has skeletons in the closet. Rodman has always been a controversial character, which is hard to deny. His friendships with him are well known and for what he has done he has already paid in due course.
F1 takes money from Aramco, a company controlled by the Saudi royal family. We do not know that Saudi Arabia is among the most democratic states in the world. Despite trying to open up to tourism, it remains one of the bloodiest dictatorships that exist at the moment. Not to mention the MotoGP itself which now has great ties with cryptocurrency trading companies. It is well known that the latter are often used for the “black” money exchanges of various criminal associations, both Italian and international. Often a helmet is just a helmet, we don’t always have to find secondary messages.
Mattia Cantarini
READ ALSO: MOTOGP | GP SAN MARINO, MARQUEZ: “I HAVE OPERATED THINKING ABOUT MY LIFE”