Pantani: The Accidental Death of a Cyclist

In 1998 Marco Pantani won both the Giro and the Tour. Nobody has done it since. He was declared the saviour of a sport shaken by doping, and was a hero to millions in Italy. A year later, on 5 June 1999, leading the Giro, he was thrown out of the race on a blood test. That test is still contested: other measurements taken the same day came in under the threshold, and years later a commission of the Italian parliament found grave procedural violations in how it was done. But for Pantani it ended that day. What followed was a collapse: depression, cocaine, an athlete who could not get back. On 14 February 2004 he died alone in a cheap hotel room in Rimini of acute cocaine poisoning. He was thirty-four. James Erskine directs; ninety-six minutes. His family, his teammates and Greg LeMond speak.