AFP/File/Joe Klamar
2007 Tour de France champ Alberto Contador met with the press accompanied by Discovery Channel Team Director Johan Bruyneel and his family and Spanish sports minister Jaime Lissavetzky. Contador basically announced they he never doped and he is not involved in Operation Puerto (OP). He will not stop racing and will in fact give DNA samples and help with the investigation. The growing controversy surrounding the Tour champ resulted in Contador not being invited to several races especially in Germany where investigator Werner Franke is said to have evidence linking Contador to OP.
The announcement by Contador must surely be a way to help clear the air of suspicion surrounding Contador especially as he is now looking for a new team to race for in 2008. Tailwind Sports the company behind the Discovery Channel team has announced that they are stopping the team at the end of the 2007 season. Tailwind sports was unable to find a suitable sponsor since the announcement earlier this year that Discovery Channel would cease sponsorship. The never ending flow of doping news most likely scared away potential sponsors, especially with the admission by Ivan Basso of being “Birillo” of Operation Puerto fame. The involvement with Basso and other doping controversies which only intensified during the Tour de France may make any potential sponsor shy away.
Now, the remaining team and associated staff will be looking for a job for 2008. George Hincapie is said to have already signed for T-Mobile which will stay in the sport until 2010. Levi Leipheimer, Yaroslav Popovych and Alberto Contador to name a few will be looking for work.
The end of Tailwind sports marks the end of a formidable team that started way back in the 90s as Subaru Montgomery. The team eventually landed a large sponsor in the United States Postal Service who was keen to advertise overseas. In 1998 they signed recovering cancer victim Lance Armstrong. In 1999 Johan Bruyneel came on board. The rest is history. Discovery Channel finally seemed to get past the Armstrong Era with Contador. The team performed better overall placing three racers in the top ten overall at the Tour.
Just like US Postal “took over” after the demise of Motorola in the early 90s a similar pattern is emerging at Team Slipstream is gaining momentum to be the next top American team. Slipstream may not take the ProTour opening left by Discovery Channel for 2008 as their main goal is entry to the Tour de France only and not the various Pro Tour events.
Another interesting note is a developing trend. The 2007 and 2006 Tour winning team have ceased sponsorship at the end of each season. Last year’s Phonak squad ended after Floyd Landis’ Testosterone case caused replacement sponsor iShares to cancel its sponsorship of the team. Now Discovery Channel is ending its sponsorship after having a Tour winner in its ranks. Sponsors are shying away from the sport and the doping headlines causing racers and support staff to actually lose their jobs. With lots of racers around and not as many teams, they pay for racers goes down due to supply vs. demand. Therefore each racer gets less money than they would have otherwise. So, the incentive to dope should now disappear.
Ugh, the sinking feeling is starting again. Velonews announced that Tour de France winner Alberto Contador is scheduling a press conference where he will release a statement and not take questions from the press. Discovery Team Manager Johan Bruyneel will be by his side.
Contador issued a release Wednesday notifying media of his plans to read a statement at the offices of Spain’s national sports council – the Consejo Superior de Deportes – in Madrid.
Contador will be accompanied by Discovery Channel team director Johann Bruyneel.
Via Podium Cafe: http://www.velonews.com/news/fea/13062.0.html
This conference could also be setup to announce that Contador will not be racing while the WADA investigation to Contador’s Operation Puerto case is finalized. WADA decided to re-investigate Contador’s involvement in Operation Puerto which was previosuly dismissed by the UCI.
The World Anti Doping Agency has opened an investigation on Alberto Contador (Discovery Channel), winner of this years Tour de France, and his alleged involvement in Operation Peurto. WADA is working with ex-Liberty Seguros rider Jörg Jaksche, who admitted that he worked with the Spanish doctor while he was a team-mate of Contador at Liberty Seguros, after it received documents from German Professor Werner Franke that supposedly links the Spaniard to Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes.
Documents seized in the case are said to contain the letters A.C., which is allegedly the initials of Alberto Contador. Jaksche’s initials are also present on the document along side the doping products that he has admitted to using. “I don’t know if Contador was a client of Fuentes,” said Jaksche. “I only know that I used those doping products that are shown on that document.”
With this action, WADA is overturning the UCI’s earlier decision to acquit Contador of any involvement in the case.
Johan Bruyneel, Contador’s team manager, has serious doubts of the integrity of Professor Franke. “‘He defended Danilo Hondo, when he was caught in the Tour of Murcia for using the banned substance Carphedon, if you ask me he only speaks the language of the person paying him,” said Bruyneel.
Cyclingnews.com
Hopefully the press conference is a simple announcement that Contador is simply not going to race and will participate with the WADA investigation. He could also reclaim his innocence and vow to fight. The other possibility would be that he could admit to being involved in Puerto which would not be a good thing for cycling or the Discovery Channel Team.
GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP/Getty Images
Ivan Basso looked like he redeemed himself yesterday with the honest admission of working with Dr. Fuentes and admitting that he is “Birillo”. But Basso has a career and palmares to think about. The Giro victory was a major milestone that was ripe to be taken away now that Basso admitted to doping.
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AP Photo/Riccardo De Luca
The news is not so much shocking as it is refreshing. When Ivan Basso quit Discovery Channel last week it seemed to be a quiet admission of guilt. This time was not going to be so easy for Basso to get around the CONI investigation. More evidence came about and the DNA match of blood bags with Jan Ullrich did not bode well for Basso. The walls of justice were closing in on Basso.
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Photo credit should read DOUG PENSINGER/AFP/Getty Images
Well that did not last long. Ivan Basso announced that he is leaving the Discovery Channel team. Basso asked out of his two year contract in order to avoid being a distraction to the team as they try to find a new sponsor. Basso wants to make it known that this decision was 100% his and not of the team. Basso spoke with
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Ivan Basso is angry about the timing of the recent reports about the opening of the CONI investigation. In fact the timing is questionable since we are two weeks away from the start of the Giro D’Italia and in the Spring Classics season. Basso was to make an appearance at Fleche Wallone on Wednesday and Liege bastonge Liege on Sunday.
Investigators from CONI did say that the Spanish Guardia Civil contacted them in November and December with more information and samples from the bags of blood that allegedly belonged to Basso. The investigation was ongoing but in private. Perhaps CONI was in a Discovery phase of gathering evidence to put together a solid case against Basso, but the timing suspect. CONI has had a bad reputation of pooping on the Giro in order to get the maximum publicity from drug seizures, raids and tests. So for Basso to question the timing of the latest episode of Operation Puerto is not out of the question.
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The Operation Puerto case against Ivan Basso was suspended back in October due to a lack of evidence. The Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) did not have substantial evidence to prosecute Ivan Basso, so they suspended the case with the caveat that it could be reopened if new evidence arises in the future. It is not immediately clear if any new evidence has turned up, but CONI has decided to summon Basso to appear before officials on May 2nd.
The committee said on its Web site (www.coni.it) that the rider had been summoned to appear before officials in Rome at 1500 local time (1300 GMT) on May 2 and had been notified personally of the summons.
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Discovery Channel must have seen this coming when they decided to sign Basso. Christian Prudhomme is cracking down on the Operation Puerto people, 50 in all. Armed with the news of Jan Ullrich’s positive DNA match with the Operation Puerto blood bags and news that Fuentes is back to his old ways, the ASO must have a queasy feeling in their stomachs. But I can’t say I do not blame them.
Operation Puerto was a mess in many ways. the investigation was sloppy and inconclusive. There were more leaks than actual evidence. The Spanish Guardia Civil looked about as bad as Alberto Gonzalez does now. Poor management of information and a bumbled investigation do not help the cause of eliminating drugs in cycling.
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He is known as Mr. 60 Percent in some circles and was a member of the notriously doped up Gewiss-Bianchi teamof the 90s. It was the high flying 90s and who wasn’t on something? But the past is the past and Bjarne just wants to move on. This is just one more reason why cyclist from the 90s and any other time should get some type of amnesty.
“I have never had a particularly close relation with Jef d’Hont and he has no validation for the allegations he is making. There will always be some one out there trying to make money by talking about the past and in my opinion that is probably, what he is trying to do here,” Riis said. “This is probably not the first nor the last time these kinds of stories surface. To me, it’s all in the past and I do not wish to be held accountable every time some one finds it interesting to bring up some ten-year-old story. I truly believe the future is much more important than the past. I want to be judged on the work I’m doing with my team today, and the results we achieve – that is what’s important to me.”
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While a Spanish Judge dropped the case dubbed Operation Puerto due to lack of evidence. Pat McQuaid president of the UCI is going to look at either appealing the judges decision or to take up the case through the UCI. Part of the problem with Operation Puerto is that there was no law against doping in sport in Spain until November 2006. That is well after the evidence in Operation Puerto was found. Spain only recently enacted the strict anti-doping laws that France and Italy have already established.
Another issue with Operation Puerto is the lack of clear evidence that implicated any rider and the constant leaks given to the press. This resulted in a sloppy ham-fisted investigation that inflicted more damaged against anti-doping efforts.
On stage 1 of Paris-Nice riders held a moment of silence to protest the archiving of Operation Puerto. This is in a race where the leader is David Millar of Saunier Duval a former doper who paid the price and is on the comeback trail. David Millar is one of the few exceptions in the never ending Global Struggle Against Doping. He admitted to doping, realized it was a mistake and fessed up. He took his punishment and is now coming back proving he can race clean. Most other doping offense do not come out so neat and tidy.
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