Gavazzi Puts Cocaine Addiction Behind Him

As he considers himself cured, Gavazzi refuses to talk about his past, preferring to concentrate on the future.

Five years ago, Mattia Gavazzi was a cocaine addict. Now he dreams of emulating his father Pierino, who won the Milan-San Remo classic in 1980 and five Giro d'Italia stages.

Gavazzi, 25, was suspended for 14 months after testing positive for cocaine in 2004 when he was still an amateur. The Italian federation also ordered him to follow a rehabilitation programme and that is probably what saved him.

"He started cycling when he was very young," his manager at Team Serramenti-Diquigiovanni, Gianni Savio, told Reuters after his protege won the first stage of the Tour de Langkawi, in Malaysia, on Monday.

"Then, just when his career was supposed to really start, he plunged into drugs, more exactly cocaine. But he quit. He was very well taken care of by his family and went into rehab.

"Four years ago, he was living in a community with addicts trying to get better, like him.

"He now is out of hell, he rediscovered a taste for cycling and he is about to become one of the most gifted sprinters of the peloton."

Gavazzi has proved his manager's point this week by beating the favourites, including in-form Australian Chris Sutton, to win the first two stages of the week-long Tour de Langkawi.

GIRO DREAM

Gavazzi has been steadily improving year on year and this season he could fulfil his dream of taking part in the Giro d'Italia after his team were invited by organisers RCS to the 2009 race.

It has been a long road to the top for Gavazzi, who with his broad torso and short legs has the typical build of a sprinter.

In 2006, he joined the unheralded Amore e Vita, the team in which his father ended his career in 1992 after winning five Giro stages between 1974 and 1981.

Gavazzi junior then moved to the Kio-Ene team, winning three stages of the Tour of Normandy, before snatching four more professional victories with the Preti Mangimi team in 2008.

Gavazzi found the ideal working conditions in a team that specialised in reviving careers which had once been tainted in doping affairs, such as those of Davide Rebellin, Gilberto Simoni and Michele Scarponi.

He says he is now ready to take his career to the next level.

As he considers himself cured, Gavazzi refuses to talk about his past, preferring to concentrate on the future.

"I am feeling very well, I am happy," he told Reuters. "I have started this season very well and I want to win as much as I can."