Cycling clouded by allegations, scandals
Controversy after controversy for sport fighting for credibility
CHARLEROI, Belgium - Italian fans ran around draped in their national colors at the start of the Fleche Wallonne classic, looking for Ivan Basso’s bicycle beside the Discovery Channel bus. It was nowhere in sight, nor was their national star.
Such is cycling nowadays. Hero today, gone tomorrow.
After winning Italy’s Giro last year, Basso now is sidelined by his team because of fresh doping allegations — and the battered sport is facing yet another scandal, more hearings, more lawyers.
Shades of Floyd Landis, winner of the Tour de France last year after the unlikeliest of comebacks, and in doping trouble just as quickly. With the season of major tours starting May 12, it seems cycling just can’t escape the scourge of drugs.
“This could all drag on again,” sighed Erik Breukink, leader of the Rabobank team. “Legal problems — you don’t solve these on a whim.”
Especially not in cycling. Almost a year later, there still is a huge asterisk next to the sport’s premier event, the Tour de France — was it won by doping-tainted Landis, or by runner-up Oscar Pereiro?
Basso last year won the sport’s second-biggest event, the Giro d’Italia, but might not be available to defend his title because the Discovery Channel barred him from racing after the Italian Olympic Committee reopened its investigation into the Spanish doping scandal. Basso was thrown out of last year’s Tour because of allegations he received performance-enhancing drugs from a Spanish doctor.
The scandal also kept 1997 Tour de France champion Jan Ullrich out of the 2006 race and drove the German into retirement early this year. Like all top riders implicated, he denies any doping.
Basso was hired by Discovery during the winter to become the team’s next Lance Armstrong. Now he faces a doping hearing on Wednesday, just 10 days ahead of the start of the Giro. Landis, seeking to disprove he was doping at the Tour, has his hearing with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency two weeks later, and called his whole season off long ago.
As the ProTour is entering the most exciting stretch of the season, doubt is everywhere.
“We are sure about nothing,” said Breukink. “Not even Basso. That might yield nothing. Riders have their rights, too.”
The Italian hearing leaves Basso’s future in serious doubt and Discovery Channel’s season up in the air at a critical point.
Basso’s sporting director, Dirk Demol, was standing across the street from where the fans were taking pictures of the Discovery bikes. Demol chatted and joked with an easygoing demeanor belying the problems facing the team. Then again, dramas are everyday life in cycling nowadays.
The former racer mimicked a pretty good whiplash when he tried to show how Basso’s teammates reacted with amazement to the news earlier this week. “But the atmosphere is already good again,” he said as Thursday’s Fleche Wallonne race was about to start.
He refused to address the underlying issue — how Discovery had taken a huge risk by hiring a doping-tainted rider such as Basso, who was favored to win the Giro-Tour double this year.
Armstrong, who is still involved with the Discovery team with which he rode to his final Tour victory in 2005, has said American Levi Leipheimer might move into Basso’s spot if the Italian remains sidelined.
|
“For us it was the end of the story when we left him,” he said in a clipped voice while mostly staring ahead, showing he had already dealt with one doping scandal too many. Riis, too, was accused of doping when he won the Tour in 1996, but has brushed off the allegations.
“I did last year what was best for the team,” he said. “We have decided to move on and concentrate on the future. This is where we put our energy. We have paid enough,” he said, adding that CSC now is conducting private drug tests on its riders.
In 1999, Italian star Marco Pantani was the Tour and Giro defending champion when he failed a random blood test and was kicked out of the Italian race he was dominating. It created a huge uproar in a nation that embraces cycling almost as much as soccer.
Five-time Tour winner Bernard Hinault does not want to see a repeat of that embarrassment.
“Get them out before,” he said of drug users. “It is a lot clearer.”
- Discuss Story On Newsvine
-
Rate Story:
LowHigh - Instant Message
MORE FROM OTHER SPORTS |
 Other sports Section Front |
| Add Other sports headlines to your news reader: |
Sponsored links