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Cycling-Climber Pantani admired despite personal problems

By Stephen Farrand

MARSEILLE, France, Feb 14 - Marco Pantani was one
of the most admired riders in the history of cycling because of
his spectacular and aggressive style of racing in the high
mountains of the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France.

Yet both his career and personal life were marked by
problems of depression and accusations of doping before he was
found dead at the age of 34 in a hotel room in the Adriatic
coastal resort city of Rimini on Saturday night.

Pantani was born on January 13, 1970 in Cesena near the
Italian Adriatic coast, close to the holiday resort of Rimini.

He won the amateur version of the Giro d'Italia in 1992 and
turned professional in 1992 with the Italian Carrera team.

He won his first race -- a mountain stage of the Giro
d'Italia -- in 1994, showing his natural ability in the high
mountains, and in 1995 won two stages in the Tour de France and
was third in the world road race championships in Colombia.

A broken leg at the end of 1995 forced him to miss most of
the 1996 season but he made a successful comeback winning two
more mountain stages in the Tour de France.

In 1998 he won 16 races, including both the Giro d'Italia
and Tour de France.

The 1998 Tour was affected by a doping scandal involving the
Festina team but Pantani saved the race with captivating rides
in the Alps.

He took the race leader's yellow jersey from Jan Ullrich of
Germany on a dramatic rain-soaked stage to Les Deux Alpes and
kept it all the way to the finish in Paris.

HOUSEHOLD NAME

He was the first Italian to win the Tour de France since
Felice Gimondi in 1965.

The Giro and Tour double made him a household name in Italy
but in 1999 he was accused of doping when he failed a blood
haematocrit test just two days before the end of the Giro
d'Italia, while leading the race.

He was disqualified and left the race in shame.

Pantani was put on trial in Trento and Bologna for doping
but both trials ended when judges decided no suitable law was in
place at the time when he was accused of having used the
blood-boosting drug Erythropoietin (EPO).

After months of silence, Pantani made a comeback in 2000,
winning a stage of the Tour de France to the summit of Mont
Ventoux ahead of American Lance Armstrong but it would be the
last win of his career.

He continued racing sporadically until June 2003 and
finished 14th in the Giro d'Italia.

He had a chance of riding in the Tour de France but severe
depression caused him to spend the second half of June in a
drugs and depression clinic near Venice.

He was recently reported to be living with friends in the
village of Predappio, where former fascist dictator Benito
Mussolini was born, but rarely rode his bike and was said to be
overweight.

Pantani was not registered with a professional team this
year and his father had said there was little chance of him ever
racing again. But the death of the man known as 'The Pirate' at
such a young age has shocked the whole of Italy.

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