The Cycliste Moderne, November 12, 2006

So what is the deal with Basso and Discovery Channel?

Discovery Channel announced its signing of Giro d’Italia champion Ivan Basso this week. That signing immediately produced very public responses from other teams and the Tour organizers. To make sense of it all, here is a short recap. For a comprehensive account of Operacion Puerto, check out Cyclingnews.com’s archive of coverage.

During the Giro d’Italia, Spanish police arrested Manolo Saiz, then the directeur sportif of Liberty Seguros on alleged doping violations. That was the beginning of the unraveling of Operacion Puerto, an ongoing investigation of doping by Spanish officials which came to light as a result of the May raids. Liberty Seguros and Communidad Valenicana both had managers and soigneurs implicated in the raids which focused on the medical practices of Eufamiano Fuentes a Spanish doctor who was alleged to have provided doping services to a broad array of cyclists, tennis players, soccer players and track athletes.

Very early on, Spanish press reports named Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich as clients of Dr. Fuentes. Of course both denied involvement with Dr. Fuentes or any of the other targets of Operacion Puerto. Before the Tour de France, a list of riders implicated in Operacion Puerto came to light and immediately Tour de France organizers sought to have the riders and teams involved excluded. ProTour team managers voted to withdraw any rider implicated in Operacion Puerto from the race. As a result, Ivan Basso was pulled by Team CSC, Jan Ullrich and Oscar Sevilla by T-Mobile, Francisco Mancebo by Ag2R, Astana-Wurth which took over the sponsorship of Liberty Seguros was excluded after the team was forced to withdraw because it had too many riders implicated in Operacion Puerto.

There has been a lot of rumor an innuendo as a result of Operacion Puerto. Fuentes is alleged to have had hundreds of units of blood in his possession and detailed doping histories on many pro cyclists. Basso, Ullrich and others have proclaimed their innocence. UCI, WADA and ProTour team leaders have suggested that the implicated riders ought to offer up their DNA to prove that their blood was not among that in Fuentes possession. So far the riders and the association of professional cyclists have refused to agree to DNA testing in the peleton.

The ProTour teams have met repeatedly this summer and fall trying to decide what to do about the riders implicated in Operacion Puerto. The UCI began transmitting Operacion Puerto documents to the national federations of the cyclists implicated in the investigation. As the federations received the documents they began disciplinary proceedings against many of the riders.

Most of the riders named in Operacion Puerto found themselves out of contracts as they were either fired or found themselves in limbo as they were not fired but not allowed to race. Then in early October, Spanish judiciary officials sent notices out that the documents produced to the national federations as a result of Operacion Puerto could not be utilized for disciplinary proceedings until the investigation had been concluded. During much of the summer, Spanish judges had also issued various orders indicating that certain riders had either been cleared or that they would not be criminally charged as a result of the investigation. However, that was in part due to the fact that Spanish antidoping laws were considerably weaker than those found in Italy and France. Only in November did the Spanish government pass more stringent anti-doping and sporting fraud laws. It is questionable if any of the riders implicated in Operacion Puerto could even be charged with criminal violations in Spain under the regulations that existed prior to November.

During all of this, Ivan Basso aggressively contested the doping allegations against him. It appears that much of the evidence of doping against Basso is circumstantial and is based on other people talking about Basso, not direct evidence of doping by Basso. Team CSC did not fire him but did not let him race. The FCI, Italy’s cycling federation, initiated doping proceedings but determined that there was not enough evidence to proceed against Basso and recommended disciplinary proceedings be dismissed. The Italian Olympic committee, CONI, which has ultimate disciplinary responsibility closed the investigation claiming there was not enough evidence to proceed against Basso but indicated that proceedings could be reopened if more evidence were forthcoming. Team CSC then announce it had agreed to release Basso from his contract and Basso started looking for a new team.

The organization representing the ProTour teams indicated at the launch of next year’s Tour de France route that they had reached an agreement that the teams would require DNA testing of their riders and that no team would sign any of the implicated riders until the results of the full investigation was known. Spanish officials have indicated that the investigation and trial will not conclude until the middle of 2007.

As a result of the ProTour teams’ agreement it was expected that the implicated riders would be relegated to signing for the smaller continental professional teams. Basso had been linked with a couple of minor Italian teams and Ullrich, while trying to find a federation that would issue him a license had been linked to the new Russian-Italian Tinkoff team.

This week, Basso and Discovery announced a multi year deal which would make Basso and Levi Leipheimer the clear grand tour GC riders for Discovery. The response was swift. Some team managers claimed Discovery had violated the agreement of the ProTour teams not to sign implicated riders. Representatives of the ASO, the organizer of the Tour de France, commented that Discovery and Basso could be excluded from next year’s Tour. Basso showed up training this week in Discovery team kit.

So, Discovey signs one of the best riders in the world, CSC loses their best rider, and nothing is really answered.

So what is the deal with the Cofidis trial?

Meanwhile in France, riders implicated in the French investigation of doping at Cofidis faced trial this week. The trial is the result of the investigation that arose from the arrest of Philippe Gaumont, David Millar and other Cofidis riders and employees in 2004. The investigation of Millar resulted in his two year suspension for EPO use. It appears that most of those named and who were compelled to testify admitted their involvement in doping while at the team. It appears that the French judiciary is looking to send a message as prosecutors have recommended suspended sentences for most riders and individuals implicated in the matter.

Now, the Cofidis investigation has an interesting twist in French allegations of doping by Lance Armstrong and US Postal Service. In 2000 US Postal Service signed French rider Cedric Vasseur, who had worn the yellow jersey for about a week during the 1997 Tour de France while with GAN. Vasseur rode the Tour that year as Armstrong defended his 1999 victory.

However, Vasseur’s stay at US Postal Service ended in acrimony as he did not take to the team’s all for Armstrong approach to racing and when he was excluded from the Tour roster in 2001 he was highly critical of Armstrong and the team. Evidently, Armstrong did not provide Vasseur with the same bonus that he had paid the other riders on the 2000 team. He moved to Cofidis in 2002.

As a member of Cofidis in 2004, Vasseur was arrested and interrogated as a result of Philippe Gaumont’s arrest. Vasseur spent several days in custody of French police. Ultimately, Vasseur was cleared of any wrong doing and is not a defendant in the Cofidis doping trial. In light of the manner in which Vasseur was treated by Armstrong, and Vasseur’s publicly stated animosity towards Armstrong and the US Postal Service team, had Vasseur had any evidence or suspicion of doping at US Postal Service, it would have likely been disclosed during police questioning. I have to believe that Vasseur was questioned at length about the practices at US Postal Service while he was in police custody in 2004. Clearly, French officials have been seeking information on doping and have clearly shown leniency to riders who names named. If anyone every would have named names it would have likely been Cedric Vasseur. The fact that he apparently did not can be considered as evidence that at least in 2000 and 2001 US Postal Service and Armstrong were clean.

Where have the manly Flemish men gone?

In a final, even more disconcerting note, Omega Pharma, the owner of the Davitamon brand and sponsor of the Davitamon-Lotto team announced that after four years of sponsoring teams under the Davitamon brand that the sponsorship has run its course and that they would promote another brand this next season. Omega Pharma’s “Predictor” brand will replace Davitamon and the Predictor-Lotto team’s jerseys will be salmon pink next year. Now, there have been some questionable sponsorships over the years. Now, Eddy Merckx rode for Molteni, a maker of sausage. Greg LeMonde rode for Z a children’s clothing retailer. Stephen Roche rode for Tonton Tapis a hideous carpet vendor. I cannot see, however, any of them riding in a salmon jersey advertising a HOME PREGNANCY TEST.