On Valentine's Day 2004, one of Italy's greatest cyclists was found dead in mysterious circumstances.

Initially, there's growing mystery about the death of one of the country's sporting heroes.

Antani, known as the pirate, because of the yellow bandana he wore around his head.

In November 2021, new evidence had supposedly come to light,

alleging that the Italian mafia were involved in Marco Pantani's death.

Five other top European cyclists have died mysteriously in the last year.

The maficles were money years.

Nearly 20 years on, are we any closer to knowing for sure what happened to the pirate?

It's a very dark story, the Pantani story. It's a tragedy.

I'm Hugh Dennis and this is Sports Strangest Crimes, Marco Pantani, Death of a Pirate.

Listen on BBC Sounds.

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

The TMS Podcast.

Take the ashes with you this summer.

Hear every ball, live on BBC Sounds.

I'm Jonathan Agnew and welcome to the ashes daily podcast.

The third test of heading lead starts on Thursday with plenty of talking points

and we discuss many of them with our journalist panel of Mel Farrell,

Whiston Editor, Laura Sputh and Jonathan Liu of The Guardian.

And goes green, bowl short again, Besto ducks underneath it.

So, that's where that passage of, oh, hang on.

Now this is interesting.

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