You couldn't write this shit!

Well where the hell to start? I suppose rather fittingly i should start with Marco Pantani, the late great 'Il Pirata' was the first cycling superstar i remember, being slightly too young to be aware of Miguel Indurains efforts in the early 90's, in fact it would not be wrong for me to say that if it wasn't for 'Il Pirata' i wouldn't ride a bike at all. Watching his scintillating attacks in the mountains on his way to the 1998 Tour de France as a young boy i was memorised, the speed, the colour the panache the pain etched across the riders faces as this little Italian wiped the floor with them had me hooked, little did i know and the time that this wonderfully colourful and extravagant sport had such a dark underbelly.

Fast forward to 2010 and after watching the Tour de France for numerous years and finally getting my leg over a top tube for the first time 5 years ago i am finally a half decent bike rider myself, with a height of 5ft8 and a racing weight of 57kg comparisons could easily be drawn to the diminutive stature of Il Pirata himself. Unfortunately Marco's future, which must have looked oh so bright in Paris at the end of the 1998 Tour faded away, until on the 14th Feburary 2004 he was found dead in his hotel room alone from a cocaine overdose a victim of the system this beautiful sport of ours produced in which you have to give your all and sometimes end up giving too much...he never failed a dope test.

Now there is a new Pantani in the world of cycling, Ricardo Ricco, unlike his hero Ricco has already failed a drugs test for CERA and almost completed his 20 month suspension which rather fortunately for him finishes the day before this Milan San Remo arguably the greatest one day race in the World which could see him lining up with his new best mate Mark Cavendish who recently described Ricco 'a parasite coming back', now then nobody can deny the damage Ricco has done to the sport but come on Mark describing Ricco as a 'parasite' when your own mentor confessed to using epo before the 1996 claiming to have only used it for a week as the effects were too great for him to handle is a bit rich! It will be interesting to see how this latest spat in the world of pro cycling develops over the coming season, comparisons could be drawn with the relationship between Il Pirata and Armstrong after Pantani put him away up Mont Ventoux in the 2000 Tour...namely they hated each other.

I took this photo after the 2008 Tour stage which finished in St Brieuc Brittany a few weeks later the Tour was blown apart for the second year in a row and not due to what was happening on the road, i've always wondered what was in that bag!

But Ricco's problems do not stop at having the stroppy Manx man first in the queue to give him a kicking, oh no as if Ricco's own doping story could not have been enough on the eve of his comeback to professional racing his long term girlfriend and mother of their child herself tested positive for CERA. Instead of Ricco coming out to defend his partner she is his partner no more unless the doping charges against her are dismissed, a nice touch after she has stood by him for the last 2 years since his positive at the 2008 Tour. Lets just hope we do not have another Pantani on our hands.

If the Ricco merry go round isn't enough, Schumacher is still trying to get his doping charges dropped against him, despite testing positive during both the 2008 Tour and 2008 Olympics, Di Luca has finally been caught and handed a lengthy suspension, Valverde cannot even enter Italy for risk of imprisonment a sanction which still maybe extended to world wide competition but which has not stopped him racing in the early season, Boonen seems to have stopped powdering his nose for now, but the coup de grace has to be the announcement today (15/02/2010) that the French courts have issued an international arrest warrant for Floyd Landis, yeah remember that piss taker, after his coach allegedy hacked the accounts of the anti-doping lab used in his case and changed some of the data stored.

What does the future hold for Valverde? Another period in yellow or a prolongued rest period?

Yet despite all this the sport lives on and it always will, the panache, the verve, the speed and the colour i witnessed during that 1998 Tour will always be there as will the pain etched on the faces of the defeated and in some cases of the victors, no amount of bad press can ruin it for me because this is our sport, it's our passion and our lives and i love it.