Tour de France in chaos after doping claims
The Tour de France was stripped of three of its
biggest names on Friday after Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso and Francisco Mancebo were
implicated in a doping investigation in Spain.
Ullrich on a happier day
The Tour de France was stripped of three of its biggest names on Friday after Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso and Francisco Mancebo were implicated in a doping investigation in Spain.
The Astana-Wuerth team, formerly known as Liberty Seguros, also announced their withdrawal from the race. Five of their riders were on a list of nine Tour competitors provided by the Spanish police to an investigating magistrate.
The doping scandal erupted last month after the Spanish Civil Guard raided a number of addresses to find large quantities of anabolic steroids, laboratory equipment used for blood transfusions and more than 100 packs of frozen blood.
Earlier on Friday, ASO announced it was in possession of a list of more than 50 riders involved in the probe after being handed a 37-page document by the Spanish Cycling Federation.
On Monday, Ullrich and Pevenage had issued strong denials about their involvement in what could be the biggest doping scandal in cycling since the Festina affair in 1998.
“At first we had no reason to doubt the riders’ statements. Therefore we couldn’t make any decision merely based on speculations, rumours and guesses”, said Christian Frommert, director of sports communication for T-Mobile International. “This situation has now changed profoundly. Accordingly we will now live up to our responsibility towards making cycling a clean sport.”
“There was clearly contact between the Spanish doctor and Jan Ullrich, Oscar Sevilla and Rudy Pevenage, which all three had previously ruled out as having taken place,” T-Mobile media spokesman Stefan Wagner told German television on Friday.
The only comment I can offer is one of those predictably trite statements, like — decades of support for competitive cycling convince me that 99.99% of those involved don’t consider doing stupid things to their bodies to get a bit more hardware and a few extra dollars.
We said the same thing thirty years ago, forty years ago.
Posted: Sat - July 1, 2006 at 07:20 AM