Professional Cycling For the Fans - Answer me this about the TdF scandal

What happened to Vino? I thought he wasn't on the lists?

Joe

Vino got shafted. He's not riding, as 5 out of 9 riders on his Astana-Wurth team were implicated in the Operacion Puerto documents. Riders implicated were removed from the TdF and not replaced. Since that left Astana-Wurth with only 4 riders, they were below the Tour minimum of 6 riders starting the race.

Vinokurov was NOT named or involved with the scandal, but unfortunately signed with a team where doping apparently was rampant (see the disgraced Roberto Heras Vuelta victory stripped away... )

Tough beans for Vino and fans around the world who love to see him attack attack attack.

Why?

Why were team bosses so quick to pull Basso and Jan?
Why didn't they challenge this like Vino's team?

All this advertiser/sponsor money on the line and they reacted swiftly by pulling them off the team the day before the race starts? I don't get that part of this.

Also, the timing of the release of the name is suspicous....field now a little more favorable to a Spaniard?

Let's get back to the original questions:
Why were team bosses so quick to pull Basso and Jan?
Why didn't they challenge this like Vino's team?

The timing in the name revelations was totally different. Astana Wurth (Vino's team), formerly called Liberty Seguros were already heavily involved weeks before the start of the Tour. Liberty got out the day it was revealed Manolo Saiz, co-owner of the ProTour team was involved in Operation Puerto. Wurth really only stayed because they were also main sponsor of Tour of Switzerland (they got out of the team yesterday). It's the Tour organisers that wanted to kick out Astana completely because Manolo Saiz was involved ( plus the rumour of several riders ). Saiz was caught with infamous Doctor Fuentes with 60,000 euros in his pocket.

Basso's and Ullrich's names were only rumours circulating in the peloton, but in front of the untenable situation prior to the Tour start, Spanish Sports Minister asked Spanish justice to "exceptionnaly" reveal the names of those CLEARLY involved in the Spanish case. This happened only on Thursday evening 29th June, when all teams, UCI, ASO received a 50-page summary (out of 500) of the findings of Operation Puerto. For T-Mobile, it is was not about if Ullrich takes drugs or not, but simply plainly that he bluntly lied to them. Furthermore it is assumed ( I cannot prove it, and it has not been confirmed by T-Mobile, so careful with this news ) that he refused to compare his DNA to that found on certain blood bags.

For Basso, the "only" apparent fault is his name is mentioned in several phone conversation between doctors, as being a patient. The conversations point to a nickname on notes found: "Birillo". Birillo is the name of Basso's dog. Now payments to accounts in Switzerland, and doping programs are being compared to Basso's programs and races.

Won't go into the discussion around the "ethics chart" signed by all ProTour teams. This has been covered everywhere already.

To my knowledge not all names have been officially revealed yet from the list of 58 riders, probably because their involvement is not sure enough. For example who is the "nickname" Nicolas, that appears in one of El Pais articles. Nicolas Jalabert? Well, he's in the Tour, riding for Phonak.

Finally Spanish investigation team has confirmed today they would not officially release any more names until after the Tour de France.

Hope this helped.

Finally Spanish investigation team has confirmed today they would not officially release any more names until after the Tour de France.


Thanks for the informative post, adamastor.


I'm concerned about the last statement, though, regarding no more names being released. Why not? This seems inconsistent somehow. Are there personal, press, professional, or sponsorship reasons involved? I mean, the two biggest names in the TdF were taken down so easily and dramatically. What other names are there? Players still left in the World Cup, perhaps? If that were the case, talk about rocking the sporting world...

Fuentes himself says the leaks have been selective, and he is indignant about that.

Thanks for the informative post, adamastor.


I'm concerned about the last statement, though, regarding no more names being released. Why not? This seems inconsistent somehow. Are there personal, press, professional, or sponsorship reasons involved? I mean, the two biggest names in the TdF were taken down so easily and dramatically. What other names are there? Players still left in the World Cup, perhaps? If that were the case, talk about rocking the sporting world...

Don't have too much info, but apparently it is confirmed there are no names related to soccer nor tennis (heard the rumour, Nadal was involved ???).

Normally these names should never have been released before at least end 2006/2007 through secrecy of investigation. But of course there are always reporters who know sopmeone who knows something... I guess at political level, some leaks to the press were allowed, as after French politics and Italian stances on doping, Spain wants to show it is in phase with their neighbours' poistion towards drugs in sports.

Don't have too much info, but apparently it is confirmed there are no names related to soccer nor tennis (heard the rumour, Nadal was involved ???).

Fuentes was out today adamantly stating that was not correct and that he had treated soccer, track & field, and tennis players in addition to cyclists. He also said some of the names made public were not people he knew and that others who weren't named and still in the Tour were patients, though he said because of confidentiality he would refuse to name them.

It does seem rather skewed not to kick some others out. Valvderde already took himself out but he was shown on the records as Valv./Piti (his dog) and some notations about doping schedules. Seems at least as good as Birillo and some inferences made about what was meant in a few phone calls.

Thanks for the informative post, adamastor.

Second that.
Thanks.