FILE - Alex Zanardi, smiles after winning the silver medal in the men's road race H5, during the 2016 Paralympics Games, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sept. 15, 2016,
Italian auto racing champion-turned-Paralympic gold medalist Alex Zanardi has died at 59. His life was marked by two life-altering accidents. Zanardi’s family announced his death on Saturday saying that he passed away on Friday night. The family says in a statement that “Alex died peacefully surrounded by the affection of those closest to him.” In 2020 Zanardi was seriously injured in a handbike accident after crashing into an oncoming truck during a relay event in Tuscany. Zanardi suffered serious facial and cranial trauma in the crash and was put in a medically induced coma. Nearly 20 years earlier Zanardi lost both of his legs in an auto racing crash.