valverde linked to puerto

bridgework · valverde linked to puerto

via his dog ala basso

speaking of basso, Nike is dropping cash on him.

according to cycling news, latest news, of course.

Nolte

i think valverde's name has been mentioned a few times back att he start of july/end of june

when it was said in a newspaper that more names were to be announced before the vuelta (something that never happened), a widely held belief was that valverde would be one of them

pantanifan

just when we thought the argument over dog's names was finished!

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2007/jan07/jan09news2

Who could the other riders be? "Ale, Manc, Vino and Popo" - can't see Disco being involved though (light the firework and stand back....)

crash48

Well nike have never been put off by stars that dope particularly athletics.

The Vino link does not surprise me one bit.

shimouma

Basically the papers have carte blanche to print anything they like until OP is resolved. No-one is going to sue them, as no one knows wtf is going on or will emerge some time in the indefinite future...

bianchigirl

pantanifan - if you can't see Disco being involved, can you tell me any other 'Popo' in the peloton than Yaroslav Popovych who rides for - you've guessed it - the team we all adore... Wink

bbnaz

hmmmmm I rather thought the remark was tongue in cheek Laughing

paperman

Obviously Valverde has already been sacked. It just hasn't come out yet.
Laughing

VeloSaint

So the same week the Valverde to T-Mobile story breaks, hes once again linked with Puerto.....hardly a coincidence..

pantanifan

CapeRoadie

Ale-jet
Mancebo
Vinokourov
Popovych
Landis
Basso
Ullrich
Valverde
Heras
Hamilton

Anybody else left?

Let's just FUCK cycling since everybody is doped and end the sport.

Or we could finally admit the playing field is equal, and that the best riders still win, as many of us have been saying all along.

These guys are ALL gassed. Bring on the Spring Classics!

bbnaz

Veteran Erik Zabel said Wednesday that his old teammate Jan Ullrich and others should be permitted to ride at the ProTour level rather than wait for a flawed Operación Puerto case to move forward.

Speaking at the Milram team presentation in Germany on Wednesday, Zabel said it was unfair for riders to languish in a legal purgatory, given the absence of hard evidence that they had doped.

"As long as there is no formal evidence accusing any of them of doping, what is the purpose?" he said. "It appears that all that (investigators) have to work with are rumors, innuendo and assumptions. As long as that is all they have, then all of them should be allowed to ride."

The 36-year-old Zabel said that his former teammate, defending Giro d'Italia champion Ivan Basso and others named as clients of the now-infamous Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes "must be able to take their rightful places in the peloton again."

Basso was signed by the U.S.-based Discovery Channel team, a move that has generated considerable controversy among other ProTour teams. Managers of competing teams - including Bjarne Riis, of Basso's old CSC squad - say the signing is a violation of a "gentlemen's agreement" not to hire riders named in the Puerto investigation. Ullrich, however, has not been successful in finding a ProTour team and is said to be in negotiations with the European continental squad, Acqua e Sapone.

Zabel embraced the idea of mandatory DNA tests in the case as a way of resolving any questions.

"They need to resolve this quickly," he said. "It is unfair to cycling in general and unfair to those riders."

Teams, investigators and some national federations have asked for riders named in the Puerto case to submit DNA samples as a means of cross-checking them against some 200 bags of blood seized from apartments owned by Fuentes.

Ullrich has refused to submit to DNA tests. Basso and the Discovery team issued a carefully worded press release in November suggesting that he would be willing to submit to the test "if this is requested in a national judicial or disciplinary investigation."

Both are unlikely, since Basso has been cleared by his national federation and criminal charges against athletes will probably not result from the Puerto case. Doping wasn't a criminal offense until after news of the investigation was announced. The Spanish parliament has since passed a national law similar to Italy's sporting-fraud statute.

Zabel, who finished second in the 2006 world championships, said that he has put winning the 2007 world's as his top priority. The world's are slated for September 30, in Stuttgart, where he won the world's amateur title in 1991.

http://www.velonews.com/race/int/articles/11436.0.html

VeloSaint

Bartali

Morstar

It's a level playing field if they all dope and its a level playing field if none of them dope.

One of the above exposes riders to considerably more health risks than the other so why not keep the sport dope free?

Logistically its easier to let them dope but where do you draw the line. Most of the pro-dopers agree you need health checks etc. Therefore you still have an arbitary limit on what is allowed. If there is any limit at all people will abuse it so you still got cheats who exceed the limits and those that don't. ergo nothing has changed other than the multitude of vitamin and supplement pills taken by the guy at the desk next to me become a bit more sinister and harmful to his long term health.

The problem is still there unless you have a totally de-regulated sport. Does anyone seriously advocate that. How far would some people be prepared to take the doping then?? Frightening thought.

In spite of all of that I do actually agree that OP either needs to be formalised into proper legal action or put to bed as a lesson in how not to tackle doping.