To be honest, this story is breaking faster than we can write about it so we are going to link to the excellent Tour de France blog for their thorough coverage. We’ve also asked our cycling expert Luke to take a day to analyze what this means for the tour. We hope to post his story tomorrow.

First off, what is happening for those of you who don’t know. Well, if you read this morning’s Los Angeles Times Sports Section, you would have seen this feature headline:

“Basso is Ready for Lead Role”

That now needs to be corrected to “Basso in fight to salavage career in wake of doping scandal”. The same can be said for dozens of other top riders. Basso and 36 other prominent riders have been identified by the Spanish media as being named in the country’s official doping report, the Operación Puerto reportare, for which they have been pulled out of the Tour which starts tomorrow. Here are the riders (categorized by team) who are now out of the tour:

Astaná-Würth:
* Isidro Nozal
* Jorg Jaksche
* Joseba Beloki
* Reserve: Aitor Osa
* Added Friday: Alberto Contador
* Added Friday: Allan Davis

T-Mobile:
* Jan Ullrich
* Oscar Sevilla

Also out are Alexander Vinokourov, Andrey Kashechkin, Carlos Barredo and Luis León Sanchez–not because they are named in the report but because their team Astaná-Würth does not have the required number of riders to start the race. UCI rules (Article 2.2 to be specific) require every team to start a grand tour with at least 6 riders.

Background:

The doping scandal erupted this May when Spanish police carried out arrests and raids, seizing drugs and frozen blood thought to have been readied for banned, performance-enhancing transfusions. Think of it as a Spanish version of Balco. The key player is a doctor named Eufemiano Fuentes. It should be noted that it is the teams that have been withdrawing the riders and not the tour organizers (though they are certainly pushing the teams to do so). There is an agreement that allows riders to be barred from racing while they are under investigation for doping. In terms of the investigation:

Telephone taps are thought to have turned up more key evidence, casting suspicion over Ullrich in particular.

The codenames written on the back of a business card confiscated from haemotologist Jose Luis Merino are thought to have offered further important clues. One of those codenames - “Birillo” - happens to be the name of Basso’s pet dog. The investigators’ suspicions may have deepened when they realised that former Comunitat Valenciana man Alejandro Valverde owns a dog called “Piti” - another name which appeared on the business card.

Additional information:

Here is a full list of names in the report.

Ullrich claims innocence and T-Mobile is reportedly “demanding evidence of his innocence.” Ullrich has always denied any link with Dr Fuentes, the doctor who is alleged to have provided riders with doping products however T-Mobile PR Luuc Eisenga said: “The only thing I can tell you is that the information is clear enough and didn’t leave any doubt.”

According to his team, Basso also maintains innocence. However his contract forbids him from working with doctors from outside their CSC team. Like Ullrich, now named in the report, the onus will be on him to prove his innocence and why his name was associated with a dirty doctor in Spain.

In addition to the 37 riders named by the Spanish media, there are another 21 “under investigation.” (Liberty Seguros’s 2005 roster accounts for 15 of these. Ten more compete in the colours of Comunitat Valenciana.)

At least one American is named in the report and to no one’s surprise it’s Tyler Hamilton. He’s predictably insisting on his innocence. Funny how these things just seem to follow him around. (I’m sure we’ll be hearing from his over-worked lawyers).

Others covering:

TdF Blog
Cycloblog
Biking Bi’s (maintaining an updated poll to predict the winner)

tags: tour de france

This entry was posted on Friday, June 30th, 2006 at 1:28 pm by Insider and is filed under Cycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.