Italian sprint legend Mario Cipollini is due to appear in court on March 20. The prosecutor in Lucca is asking that he be charged with stalking and violently assaulting his ex-wife, Sabrina Landucci.

Cipollini and Landucci married in 1993 and separated in 2005. The allegations date back to December 2016 and January 2017 with Cipollini also accused of making threats against Landucci’s partner, retired footballer Silvio Giusti.

Corriere della Sera reports that the indictment says Cipollini delivered punches, slaps, kicks and death threats. Landucci says that on one occasion she was hospitalised after he grabbed her by the neck and banged her head against the wall.

On another occasion she says that he told her, “I'll kill you. You'll hear the sound of the bones when they break."

If Cipollini is charged and the accusations are proven, the Italian could face a prison sentence.

Cipollini won 42 stages of the Giro d’Italia, 12 stages of the Tour de France, and Milan-San Remo and the World Championships in 2002.

In 2013, the Italian was accused of being among the clients of doping doctor Eufemiano Fuentes. He denied this, but later that year his name was on a list of positive doping tests published by the French Senate after 1998 Tour de France samples were retested for EPO.