When Italy’s greatest cyclist is mysteriously found dead, sensational allegations of mafia involvement see the world of cycling collide, headfirst, with the murky underworld of organised crime.

Over the course of this podcast, we’ll travel from the mountains of rural Italy, to the shady commercial underbelly of a sport on the rise, as - two decades on - the police, historians and our cycling-obsessed host Hugh Dennis try to answer once and for all what really happened to Marco Pantani.

With allegations of doping, race-fixing, gambling, and corruption, 90s cycling provides the backdrop for one of the most dramatic questions in sport - and criminal - history… would the mafia really kill a cyclist?

Welcome to Marco Pantani: Death of a Pirate.

New episodes released Thursday. If you’re in the UK, listen to the full series of Sport’s Strangest Crimes - first on BBC Sounds - bbc.in/3PbXQxv Show less