Cyclist Marco Pantani’s death is one of the most tragic events in recent sports history. After winning both the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia in 1998, he was expected to dominate cycling well into the next decade. Instead, he was caught in a blood-doping scandal, disappeared from view, and, in 2004, was found dead of cocaine poisoning. Matt Rendell tells Pantani’s story with an investigative reporter’s zeal for the facts and a novelist’s skill for depicting deeper truths. He debunks the conspiracy theories that have circulated about Pantani’s demise, and also reveals other startling findings about the dark underside of the cycling world.