Cycling: Pantani fans grieve

Hundreds of people from Marco Pantani's home town paid their last respects today to the Italian cyclist they affectionately called "The Pirate" as magistrates opened an investigation into his death.

An initial autopsy on Monday revealed Pantani, a former Tour de France winner, died from accumulated fluid in the brain and lungs. The 34-year-old had been at the centre of a series of legal probes into doping.

The pathologist in charge of the autopsy said his investigation would take weeks to complete and there were no initial signs that a cocktail of drugs was to blame.