Don't worry, the Dauphine is on the way - this inconvenient period of little race news will end soon enough. Hopefully this period completely overflowing with doping revelations will end even sooner, but don't hold your breath. This Thursday the news ain't quite as bad as last week: Doping scandal ad nauseam, Armstrong cleared, L'Equipe must have missed the memo, and much MORE!
More Names Popping Up
You had to figure it was going to happen, but when you start to see the names pop up, it's still surprising. Rightly or wrongly, guilty or innocent, names are beginning to leak of riders that were either spoken about by Fuentes from taped recordings or seen on surveillance cameras entering and leaving his medical practice.
EuroSport notes a few: Jose Enrique Gutierrez, Oscar Sevilla, Angel Vicioso, and Santiago Botero. Sevilla and Gutierrez look to be in the hot seat at the moment though, as there are recordings as well as video containing Gutierrez and video of Sevilla.
One specific recording is reported to sound something like this: Fuentes had to go down to Italy to "bring the Buffalo pasta." The Buffalo is Gutierrez' nickname and methinks that Gutierrez. That sounds really good for Gutierrez. You'd hate to see it proved for the umpteenth time, but it doesn't often seem like a 30-something rider will just magically end up on the podium at a Grand Tour after years of never really contending. These reports are of course not guilty verdicts, they're just reports, but they certainly don't look good for the revelation of the 2006 Giro.
Phonak, which must be sick and tired of doping investigations, is opening up its own internal investigation concerning the news of Operacion Puerto, which once again sees the names of Phonak riders, this time, at the moment, it's Gutierrez and Botero. Then again, Phonak is getting out of the game at the end of the season, so what's another doping scandal.
"The Phonak Cycling Team acknowledges the appearance in the Spanish media of the names of certain team members in connection with Dr Fuentes. The team management takes these reports seriously, although it has not yet been possible to establish the truth of the allegations."
T-Mobile rider, Oscar Sevilla, first denied having any contact whatsoever with Fuentes, but then news of the video showing him coming and going from the offices showed up and his story changed to: I did performance tests with another doctor at the same office.
The T-Mobile team appears to be taking a pro-active stance on the matter "asking each of their riders to sign a three-line statement affirming that they have never worked with Fuentes." A three-line statement will surely contain the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
T-Mobile press officer, Christian Frommert defends Sevilla, but finishes ominously: "[We have] no reason to doubt Oscar, if however it transpires that he has been clandestinely using banned substances, then we will take action."
Even More Names And Bad News
Procycling just released an article detailing an article that was printed today by Spanish paper, Interviu. In it, the big name of Ivan Basso was mentioned, as well as Alejandro Valverde.
CSC press-man Brian Nygaard was dismissive of the article and "saw no need to release a statement on what is just a meaningless sentence in a Spanish magazine."
Procycling takes it from here: "In one conversation apparently recorded during the Giro, Liberty Seguros boss Manolo Saiz asks Fuentes: “Are you taking it to Basso, too?”. Fuentes doesn’t respond but, according to Interviu, Spanish investigators have already concluded that the “it” in question is frozen blood."
Basso, of course, has denied any and all contact.
The hits just keep on coming from Spain at the moment. It will be interesting to see what the real investigation turns up, as for the moment, most of the stories have come from radio or tabloid papers - so there's the possibility that everything could be false - which would be nice.
Labarta Resigns
The axe is already beginning to fall on some heads in the wake of the Operacion Puerto findings. Assistant DS for the Comunidad Valenciana team, Jose Labarta, has 'resigned' his post within the team: "I want to separate myself from the team so that the shadow of suspicion does not fall on them and their staff. The activities of the team have always been carried out in a legal, sporting, and ethical manner." He probably wasn't pressured to resign, and he probably wrote that statement himself too.
Now of course, Labarta's resignation will hopefully help the Comunidad Valenciana team in something that they consider far more important than his job: entry to the Tour de France.
Comunidad Might Not Be Tour Bound Anymore
The Comunidad Valenciana team is in a very delicate place at the moment, as they received a Wild Card invite to Le Tour in 2006 after a two year absence due to previous doping allegations.
Procycling, as well as virtually every other newssource on the planet, reports that it appears that CV's head is placed and ready for chopping. Head honcho for Le Tour, the man himself, Jean-Marie LeBlanc has said that ASO will wait to make a decision on CV until more information is released, but it more likely seems that unless something very positive is released, CV will be watching the Tour on TV.
This leaves us with two comments:
1.) Vicente Belda probably has a bounty on Jesus Manzano's head, as it was Manzano that got Kelme booted from the Tour two years ago, and it was apparently Manzano's help two years later that helped open Operacion Puerto up - and could once again lead to Kelme/CV's exclusion from the Tour.
2.) Unibet.com has to be pretty close to gleeful at this news, after the team was wholly wrongly, completely shut-out from all Grand Tours in 2006 - Unibet could well find itself in Le Tour if CV gets the boot. Or maybe Barloworld...
Armstrong Cleared, At Last
Whew, at least one doping investigation seems to have ended with a nice result. Thankfully, it would have been a terrible event to find that Armstrong's incredible 99 comeback was, yeah, you can't even call it tainted. It would have been horrible.
Armstrong, who must be enjoying a very happy last day or so released this firm statement:
"Today the independent investigator appointed by the UCI announced the results of his work in a 130-page report. I want to thank him and his staff for all their hard work and diligence in this process. I have not had an opportunity to study the report yet, but I wanted to let you know my preliminary reactions to the report.
Although I am not surprised by the report’s findings, I am pleased that they confirm what I have been saying since this witch-hunt began: Dick Pound, WADA, the French laboratory, the French Ministry of Sport, L’Equipe, and the Tour de France organizers (ASO) have been out to discredit and target me without any basis and falsely accused me of taking performance enhancing drugs in 1999. Today’s comprehensive report makes it clear that there is no truth to that accusation.
The report confirms my innocence, but also finds that Mr. Pound along with the French lab and the French ministry have ignored the rules and broken the law. They have also refused to cooperate with the investigation in an effort to conceal the full scope of their wrongdoing. I have now retired, but for the sake of all athletes still competing who deserve a level playing field and a fair system of drug testing, the time has come to take action against these kinds of attacks before they destroy the credibility of WADA and, in turn, the international anti-doping system.”
WADA, UCI, L'Equipe Can't Believe It
The parties which Big Tex lumped into the conspirators of the witch-hunt are all pretty much pissed off over the news.
Dutch lawer, Emile Vrijman, was appointed by the UCI to investigate the matter and he concluded at the end of a terribly long report that: "Lance Armstrong is absolutely extraneous to the accusations levelled against him regarding the use of doping products in the 1999 Tour de France."
So that should be it, right?
Nope.
The UCI can't believe its ears, calling the report, 'premature.' The UCI apparently thinks they can make something better of the report, as the UCI feels the news should have been kept under wraps until the UCI could carefully mull over every word in the 130-page result, because that one sentence which was reported above wasn't clear enough.
WADA president, Dick Pound, did what he always does and climbed up on his soapbox and ranted and came out looking about as good as Oscar Sevilla slinking away from Eufemiano Fuentes' office on a surveillance taps: "It's clearly everything we feared. There was no interest in determining whether the samples Armstrong provided were positive or not. We were afraid of that from the very beginning." It is not known how Pound knows this, because he admitted that he has not read the report.
It just keeps getting better though, as Vrijman completely assails WADA in the report and "recommended convening a tribunal to discuss possibly legal and ethical violations by WADA and to consider 'appropriate sanctions to remedy the violations.'"
Didn't think it could get any better, oh it does: "Elementary courtesy and professionalism would have dictated that WADA should have been provided with a copy of the report before interviews were given to the media."
That's so funny that WADA should mention that! I would bet all of Texas that Lance Armstrong probably felt the same way about the story about the findings being released to L'Equipe this summer. No, no, that surely wasn't unprofessional and definitely expressed more than 'elementary courtesy.'
Dick Pound, was in a raging, red, foaming at the mouth type rant/rage: "Whether the samples were positive or not, I don't know how a Dutch lawyer with no expertise came to a conclusion that one of the leading laboratories in the world messed up on the analysis. To say Armstrong is totally exonerated seems strange."
Perhaps it would have made more sense to express this concern BEFORE the results were released, not afterwards.
Mr. Armstrong, for his part, will probably be sending flowers to Mr. Vrijman.
Ullrich To Suisse
It wasn't certain at first, but it's official now: Jan Ullrich will be taking part in mid-June's Tour de Suisse. On the start with Ulle will be recently-returned-from-injury Andreas Kloeden.
Ullrich commented about his thought process: "Naturally it played a role, that I've done well in the past in this race, and I feel well at the race."
Team manager Olaf Ludwig was happy with the decision to do the Tour de Suisse over the Vuelta Asturias: "Jan will get four extra race days doing the Tour de Suisse over Asturias. His form will profit more as well from the harder race of the Tour de Suisse, rather than Asturias."
T-Mobile In Switzerland And Some More Ulle
T-Mobile looks to be headed to the Tour de Suisse with a certain goal in mind of taking the overall win. Ullrich and Kloeden will be joined by Patrik Sinkewitz, and Michael Rogers as well.
It looks like T-Mobile is going for a little Tour de France dress rehearsal with half of their squad present, but probably considered the very important half.
Ullrich, is as always, his normal positive self. He noted recently that he is at about 80% of his physical capacities. "If I can start the Tour at 95%, anything is possible." It wouldn't be such a bad thing to be able to win a Grand Tour ITT at only about 80% of maximum capabilities.
Schumi Says Nein To Le Tour
Recent double-stage winner at the Giro, 24-year-old Stefan Schumacher, made it known this week on German television station ARD with Harald Schmidt: "I already have 60 race days in my legs - the Classics season as well as the Giro. I think a little rest would do me well. I will prepare myself for the Deutschland Tour in August, which starts one week after the Tour de France finishes.
Gerolsteiner will announce its nine-man Tour de France roster after the German National Championships on 25. June in Klingenthal.
New Sponsor For Phonak
It has been hinted at for a long while, but according to Eurosport.de, the matter is official: iShares will take over title sponsorship of the Phonak team in 2007, and plans on increasing funds by up to 1/3 in order to pull in some big name riders.
Swiss tabloid, Bild, reports that the contract could be signed in the next couple of weeks.
It's a good thing the news about Gutierrez and Botero just hit the information superhighway.
Petacchi Delayed A Bit
Injured sprinting star, Alessandro Petacchi, will have to take another two weeks of vacation, as a recent visit to the doctor showed that things were lined up and ready, but more time was needed to strengthen the knee and the repairing bones.
"It's going to be two more weeks in which I can't do anything, then there'll be another appointment and then I'll surely be able to start my rehab. Maybe I can win a little time there, but what I've said from the beginning - I want to recover completely and not start too quickly. Otherwise I'll risk too much and could end up losing the entire season."
It would arguably be the most amazing comeback in recent memory if Petacchi managed to start the Tour de France in four weeks time.
Raisin Finally Home - 8 Weeks Later
Young American pro, Saul Raisin, who wrecked on April 4th and went into a coma, has finally been released from the hospital. Saul was in a coma for several days and then kept in France for awhile after that, before being allowed to return to Atlanta, where he remained in a hospital. In the last few weeks, Raisin was transferred to a rehabilitation clinic where the long, arduous comeback began.
"He's working hard, his morale is extraordinary, and his recovery is moving along very nicely," commented his Credit Agricole team.
Check out Saul's website to get a better idea of the immense progress he has already made in such a short time. PEZ wishes the best to Saul in his recovery and hope to hear news of his return to racing in the very near future.
Mr. Clean Zabel Steps Up
Erik Zabel has long held a certain honor among riders and fans alike as that certain athlete who is without a doubt clean. There has never been the slightest inkling otherwise from Zabel, and from all reports from everyone that has had anything to do with the man - he's as clean as they come. Of course, that doesn't always mean anything at all, but for this moment, we're going to be positive and innocent and assume that, for once, everything we've heard, read, and seen of someone is actually the truth.
Zabel spoke recently with Eurosport.de about the tidal wave heading worldwide from Spain called Operacion Puerto: "I think it's great, that right now in Spain there's a policy of zero tolerance at the highest level being administered."
"The proceedings with Roberto Heras and the fact that the Vuelta is always a completely different race than the Tour, gives us something to think about."
What? The fact that everyone that sucks at the Tour seems to go well at the Vuelta? That can't possibly be because of doping, that's just second-chance form right?
"Now we have to wait and see what's actually in these reports. If something is actually is there, it should be reported and put out on the table. It's unfortunate that cycling has to be reported via negative headlines, but it's also a chance for all riders that try to do their sport in an honest manner."
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