Cycling has a long and sordid history with doping — that is, taking performance-enhancing drugs (PED) to get ahead in the races. In fact, some of the earliest suspected cases of doping in cycling date back to the late 1800s, when riders would employ stimulants like cocaine to survive epic races, like Bordeaux-Paris, which ran more than 500 kilometers.
Cycling has a long and sordid history with doping — that is, taking performance-enhancing drugs (PED) to get ahead in the races. In fact, some of the earliest suspected cases of doping in cycling date back to the late 1800s, when riders would employ stimulants like cocaine to survive epic races, like Bordeaux-Paris, which ran more than 500 kilometers.
Arnie Baker, the former Floyd Landis advisor who was named in a French arrest warrant along with Landis yesterday, said he has has offered to talk to French authorities but they have not taken him up on the offer. Baker denies any involvement in hacking into the French anti-doping agency's computer system, the alleged act French authorities said they want to talk to him about.
A French judge has issued an international arrest warrant for Floyd Landis for allegedly hacking into a French anti-doping lab's computer system, the French anti-doping agency announced Friday.
Italian rider Eddy Ratti has been suspended following a positive EPO test, the UCI announced on Saturday.
Our readers weigh in on doping cases, the risks on the road and the Trek lawsuit.
The fines levied this week against former Giro d’Italia winner Danilo Di Luca reflect the greater latitude recent rule changes have given the UCI in handing down penalties, the governing body noted Tuesday.
American Tom Zirbel faces as much as a two-year suspension after a laboratory analysis of a B sample confirmed an earlier positive for DHEA.
Vania Rossi, a top Italian cyclocross racer and girlfriend of Riccardo Ricco, has tested positive for the blood booster CERA, the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) announced Friday.
Just a day after successfully defending the suspension of Stefan Schumacher in the International Court of Arbitration for Sport, anti-doping officials scored a significant legal win in a Spanish courtroom.
CAS, the world sport's top court, on Monday rejected an appeal by disgraced German cyclist Stefan Schumacher against a two-year ban for doping during the 2008 Olympic Games.
The French bank, Caisse d’Epargne, will end its sponsorship of the Spanish cycling team that bears its name at the end of the 2010 season.
Former Spanish cyclist Jesus Manzano has repeated doping charges against former teammate and compatriot Alejandro Valverde, adding that the Vuelta a España winner should admit his violations rather than continuing to deny them.
Saying they are now redundant, Lance Armstrong said on Saturday that he has dispensed with the additional personal doping tests he adopted to silence critics who suspect him of using drugs.
Alejandro Valverde’s long and winding road and his alleged links to Puerto reached a head this week during a three-day hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which closed Thursday with a hint that the Vuelta a España champion likely won’t be racing in Italy anytime soon.
Euskaltel-Euskadi said it will impose surprise internal controls on its riders in an effort to secure the team’s future.
Embattled Italian rider Davide Rebellin is challenging charges that he doped during the 2008 Summer Olympic Games and denied that he took performance-enhancing substances.
Astana will ride with two more for 2010 as Australian brothers Scott and Allan Davis are set to join the team, the squad reported Wednesday.
French officials have confirmed that they are investigating blood doping equipment discovered in a search of medical supplies belonging to the Astana team of Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong during this year's Tour de France.
Gravity racer David Mock tested positive for marijuana following the Yankee Clipper Four-cross in Windham, New York in August.
Italy's anti-doping prosecutor on Thursday asked the Italian Olympic Committee's anti-doping tribunal to hit former Giro d’Italia winner Danilo Di Luca with a three-year ban. Di Luca tested positive for the banned blood-booster EPO twice during May's Giro, in which he finished second behind Russian Denis Menchov.
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Masters racer Kenny Williams has accepted a two-year suspension after testing positive for an anabolic agent.
2009 Vuelta a España champ Alejandro Valverde may skip his title defense for a shot at the Tour de France, which he says "is the race with more international prestige."
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Former Liquigas rider Gianni Da Ros gets a double-decade ban in a doping probe that snared amateur racers, physios, gym staff and traders.
Cyclist Christian Pfannberger has received a lifetime ban from sport for repeated doping offenses, the Austrian national anti-doping agency announced.
Question: "I recently read about the UCI’s decision to strip Davide Rebellin of the silver medal he 'won' at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing because he tested positive for CERA. As my kid would say, 'big whoop.'"
Floyd Landis and the management company running the OUCH professional cycling team have agreed to end his contract a year early.
Giro stage winner gets four-year suspension for CERA
Fuji-Servetto's Alberto Fernandez De La Puebla Ramos has been suspended following a positive EPO test.
Twenty-year-old J.D. Swanguen will serve a three-month suspension for testing positive for pot at doping control at mountain bike National Championships.
When the lights dimmed in the Congrés de Palais in Paris for the presentation of the 2010 Tour de France, the unexpected was the plat du jour. Surprises are always part of the Tour presentation, and 2010 certainly didn’t disappoint. Hard days in the Pyrénées and a long, penultimate-day time trial in Bordeaux set the stage for a final week clash that should keep fans on the edge of their seats.
Recently-crowned Tour of Portugal champion, Nuno Ribeiro, tested positive for the banned blood booster EPO before the race, the rider said confirmed Friday after being notified by cycling's world ruling body. Ribeiro also won the race in 2003 but his recent victory is now under a cloud after the results from doping control prior to the race, on August 6, were officially released Friday. The 32-year-old's Liberty Seguros team announced Friday that two other riders with the team, Spaniards Hector Guerra and Isidro Nozal, had also tested positive for EPO.
As if the last two years hadn’t happened at all, Alexander Vinokourov is back at the Vuelta a España and back on the Astana team. Ignore that two-year racing ban for illegal blood transfusions and forget about the behind-the-scenes power struggle at Astana involving Johan Bruyneel, Vinokourov and the power cadre of Kazakh backers. At least that’s what Vinokourov wants everyone to do.
Alexander Vinokourov is back from his two-year doping ban, but his immediate future is anything but certain. In fact, the only thing certain about the charismatic Kazakh rider and his racing plans is shrouded in uncertainty. Besides a few vague public comments, almost no one is willing to go on the record to answer some basic questions on whether or not Vinokourov will be racing in an Astana jersey, a sure sign that something is cooking.
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The latest Tour de France doping scandal involving stage-winner Mikel Astarloza could jeopardize the future of one of Spain’s few remaining top professional teams. According to reports in the Spanish media, Astarloza’s provisional suspension for failing an out-of-competition control for the banned blood booster EPO could threaten financial backing of the Euskaltel-Euskadi team.
Alejandro Valverde will have something to prove when the Clásica San Sebastián, one of the top one-day events on the UCI ProTour, takes places on Saturday in northern Spain. The 29-year-old Caisse d'Epargne rider was recently banned from competing in Italy for two years by the Italian Olympic Committee after he was implicated in the Operación Puerto doping scandal. The decision, which Valverde has contested, ruled him out of the Tour de France, the 16th stage of which passed through Italy.
Alberto Contador is still celebrating his dominant Tour de France victory, but speculation about where he will race in 2010 will be fueling the rumor mill for weeks to come. While he’s been linked to moves to Garmin-Slipstream or Caisse d’Epargne, what is clear is that he will not join Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel on the new RadioShack team for 2010. “What’s sure, it will be on a different team than Lance,” Contador said. “We’ll see what we can do, whether it’s a new team or find a team that is 100 percent behind me to confront this race to win it again.”
Tour de France chief Christian Prudhomme was cautiously optimistic in celebrating a scandal-free 96th edition on Sunday. For the first time in recent history the world's biggest bike race avoided being dragged through the mire by drugs cheats. On this year's race only the sublime performances of Contador in the grueling mountain stages prompted some experts to raise eyebrows. However Contador, who won with a comfortable lead over his rivals, insists he is a clean Tour champion.
Lance Armstrong ruffled some feathers when he called the 2008 Tour de France a “joke” in the months ahead of his celebrated comeback. The seven-time Tour winner has since apologized for making those remarks, but the top stars from last year’s Tour are not having much luck in the 2009 edition. Of last year’s top 10, only two – Frank Schleck and Christian Vande Velde – are hanging among the leaders this year. Four – Bernhard Kohl, Samuel Sánchez, Alejandro Valverde and Tadej Valjavec – aren’t even in the race.
Tour de France race leader Alberto Contador on Thursday refused to respond to questions relating to his stunning climbing performance in the 15th stage and Thursday’s time trial victory. Spain's 2007 champion took another step towards overall victory when he won the 18th stage time trial to take a virtually unassailable lead of 4:11 over Luxembourg's Andy Schleck. Coming less than a week after his impressive victory on the summit of Verbier in Switzerland, it has cemented Contador's reputation as the best stage racer in the world.
The Johan Bruyneel era at the Astana team will conclude at the end of this season. Bruyneel confirmed to Belgian television Sporza that he will stop running the Kazakhstan-backed team at the conclusion of the 2009 season, citing a breakdown over the expected return of Kazakh rider Alexander Vinokourov. “Astana is a closed chapter for me,” Bruyneel told Sporza.
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Johan Bruyneel said if Astana wants to get rid of him as team manager, they should tell him to his face. While a months-long struggle over financial problems apparently resolved for the team ahead of the start of the Tour, the imminent return of Alexander Vinokourov seems to be creating more turbulence. A report in Friday’s edition of L’Equipe said that officials from the Kazakh-backed team plan to jettison the Belgian director and rebuild the team around Vinokourov and Spanish climber Alberto Contador.
Alexander Vinokourov said Wednesday he intends to ride for Astana later this year or there will be serious consequences for those who keep him from riding on the Kazakh-financed team. In a press conference held in Monaco in advance of Saturday’s Tour de France start, Vinokourov, whose suspension for homologous blood doping ends on July 24, said there’s no possibility that he would ride for any team other than the one he helped establish in 2006.
Ten days before the start of the Tour de France is a busy time for any ProTour team manager, but Wednesday was a particularly crazy day for Garmin-Slipstream team manager Jonathan Vaughters. During the same news cycle that reported rumors of Garmin’s interest in signing 2007 Tour de France champion Alberto Contador, the team also released its nine-man Tour roster, leaving off three active riders from last year’s squad.
For the second day in a row, a Frenchman won in a breakaway at the Dauphiné Libéré, this time with veteran head-banger David Moncoutie snagging an impressive victory in the week’s hardest stage over the French Alps. And for the third year in a row, it appears that Cadel Evans will finish runner-up, but it’s not for a lack of trying. The Silence-Lotto captain has finished second twice in a row at the Dauphiné before going on to second at the Tour de France in 2007 and in 2008.
Bernhard Kohl ? the Austrian rider who tested positive for the blood-booster CERA during last year’s Tour de France ? admitted that blood doping was the most effective way to cheat. In an extensive interview with the French sports daily L’Equipe, Kohl said extractions of blood began nearly a year before competition.
Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto) powered to a morale-boosting time trial victory Sunday against archrival Alberto Contador (Astana) to open the 61st Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré. Evans covered the technical, 12km course in Nancy in 15 minutes, 36.64 seconds, posting the best time on a steep climb at 3km and then holding off Contador by eight seconds to win the stage and claim the leader’s jersey at the eight-day Dauphiné.
The 61st Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré clicks into gear this weekend in the traditional dress rehearsal ahead of the Tour de France with a highly anticipated duel between Alberto Contador and Cadel Evans. While many eyes will be on those two for a glimpse of bigger things to come in July, the outright battle for overall victory should be wide open, with such names as Ivan Basso, Igor Anton, Robert Gesink, ambitious French riders such as Rémy Di Gregorio and Pierre Rolland lining up in one of the most competitive fields in years.
As the Giro d’Italia winds down, the troubled Kazakh-backed Astana team still isn’t sure it will be racing the Tour de France in July. The financial woes that have left portions of riders’ salaries unpaid are closer to being resolved, but UCI president Pat McQuaid said team sponsors must meet a Sunday deadline or risk suspension.
Tuesday’s first mountain stage provided an interesting antipasti of who’s going to be the main attraction in this centenary Giro d’Italia. Danilo Di Luca (LPR), the 2007 Giro champion, sprinted to victory ahead of 2000 Giro winner Stefano Garzelli (Acqua e Sapone) out of an elite group of about 40 riders to remind everyone that he’s still a force to reckon with.
Weeks of hype and anticipation culminate Saturday as the centennial celebration of cycling’s most colorful and emotional race finally clicks into gear. The Giro d’Italia is celebrating its 100th birthday with all the raw emotion, intense passion and hard-edged racing that makes the Italian grand tour one of the season’s highlights. Stepping center-stage with aplomb is Lance Armstrong, back in his first grand tour since winning the 2005 Tour de France.
Mont Ventoux will be the top attraction of a challenging 2009 Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré, a favorite warm-up for Tour de France contenders. BMC snagged an important invitation to race the demanding, eight-day course across the heart of the French Alps June 7-14, which might help ease some of the team’s disappointment after being overlooked for the Tour de Suisse later that month. Race officials on Monday announced details of the 2009 route, which will have few opportunities for sprinters and plenty of challenges for riders bucking for the overall.
Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d’Epargne) sprinted to his first victory of the 2009 season in Wednesday’s third stage at the Vuelta a Castilla y León. Levi Leipheimer (Astana) crossed safely with the pack in the second-category summit finish at the San Isidro ski area to retain the overall leader’s jersey he claimed after winning Tuesday’s individual time trial.
Dear Explainer,
I am as much of an anti-doping advocate as the next guy, but isn’t it kind of ridiculous that we’ve been suffering through the on-again-off-again cycles of Operación Puerto for more than three years now? Doesn’t cycling have a freakin’ statute of limitations?
We’ve seen Jan Ullrich driven out of the sport, Ivan Basso suspended and other riders implicated but never charged. Now we have Alejandro Valverde being charged by the Italians over something that supposedly happened in Spain.
After nearly three years of legal wrangling, Spanish prosecutors may be ready to reopen the Operación Puerto doping investigation, which a judge had put on hold last September, El Pais newspaper reported Saturday. A provincial court in Madrid has ruled that there were indications of "an offence against public health" that merited renewed examination and had therefore called for the investigation to be re-activated, according to El Pais.
A three-member arbitration panel has suspended Rock Racing rider Kayle Leogrande for two years, after concluding that he used EPO during last year's Super Week, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) announced Monday. The independent panel of arbitrators from the American Arbitration Association (AAA)/North American Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) unanimously found that Leogrande, 31, used EPO when competing at Superweek on July 26, 2007. Leogrande, who has the option to appeal to the Court of Arbitration of Sport, said he was not yet prepared to respond to the panel’s decision.
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to VeloNews.com's Live Coverage of the 14th stage of the 2008 Vuelta a Espana, a 158.4-kilometer race from Oviedo to a mountain-top finish at the Fuentes de Invierno Ski Resort.
It's another tough day, opeing with a series of Category 3 climbs:
The Alto del Padrón (which summits at12.km)
The Alto de San Tirso (22km)
The Alto de Santa Emiliano (34.5km)
to VeloNews.comcom's Live Coverage of the 11th stage of the 2008 Vuelta a España, a 178-kilometer race from Calahorra to Burgos.
to VeloNews.com's Live Coverage of the ninth stage of the 2008 Vuelta a España, a 200.8-kilometer ride from Vielha to Sabiñánigo.
to VeloNews.com's Live Cverage of the eighth stage of the 2008 Vuelta a Espana, a 151 race from Andorra to a mountain-tip finish at Pla de Beret.
to VeloNews.com's Live Coverage of the fourth stage of the 2008 Vuelta a Espana, a 170.3-kilometer race from Cordoba to Puertollano.
Spain’s Green Bullet isn’t sweating it. Alejandro Valverde says if he doesn’t win the Tour de France this year, he’s got plenty more in his legs. That’s not to say that he’s shying away from a unique opportunity to become the third consecutive Spanish winner, but Spain’s El Imbatido – “the unbeaten one” – is trying to tamp down over-zealous expectations from national media who are hyping his chances in the absence of defending champion Alberto Contador.
Denmark's Michael Rasmussen, who was thrown out while leading the 2007 Tour de France for lying about his whereabouts, has been banned for two years by the Monaco cycling federation, the sport's world governing body UCI said on Tuesday. In a case brought by the UCI in February, a three-member panel organized under the authority of the Monaco Cycling Federation, ruled that Rasmussen had intentionally misled doping authorities regarding his location in the lead-up to last year’s Tour.
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Caisse d'Epargne's Alejandro Valverde gave his future Tour de France rivals an early reminder of his explosive climbing talents by winning his second Liège-Bastogne-Liège classic Sunday.
Spain's 2007 Tour de France champion Alberto Contador is to reappear in the Criterium du Dauphine on June 8 he announced on Monday. The 25-year-old, who has been controversially barred from this year's Tour de France because his Astana team were not invited by the organisers, has been out of action since winning the Tour of the Basque Country on April 12. Contador, who took a week's rest after his victory, explained that while he had resumed training he has been taking antibiotics for the toothache that plagued him during the Tout of the Basque Country.
Former Olympic track cyclist Tammy Thomas was found guilty of three counts of perjury on Friday. Thomas, the first defendant charged in the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative investigation, was acquitted of two counts of lying to a federal grand jury investigating the BALCO case, but the jury in a federal district court found her guilty of three counts.
Editor's note: the following is an essay written by 1984 Olympic gold medalist Alexi Grewal. A full article on Grewal and his admitted use of performance enhancing drugs appears in the April 15 issue of VeloNews. Sons have a propensity to follow in their father’s footsteps. For that very reason I write this. My son, your son or daughter, should have the right to find the sport better than it is now or was in our day.
The organizer of next month’s three major spring classics named the 25 teams invited to participate in Paris-Roubaix, Fleche Wallone and Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Paris-Roubaix on Tuesday. As expected, the Astana team of defending Tour de France champion Alberto Contador was not included on the list issued by the Amaury Sport Organisation, the private firm that also organizes the Tour.
UCI chief pat McQuaid on Friday promised to back reigning Tour de France champion Alberto Contador should he decide to take legal action over his exclusion from this year's race. The tour's organisers, Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), ruled on February 13 that Contador's Astana team would be barred from competing in this year's race as a result of doping scandals over the past two years. But International Cycling Union (UCI) president McQuaid said the decision is unfair.
The third stage of the Volta a Valenciana ended on a controversial note Thursday as a misdirected peloton split between a highway and a frontage road in the decisive final 5km of the 166.5km climbing course around Ibi. Ruben Plaza (Benfica) stole away the leader’s jersey from José Iván Gutiérrez (Caisse d’Epargne) in one of the most bizarre mishaps in recent cycling history.
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Dear Readers,
Welcome to the latest edition of The Prologue, the weekly summary of news from the world of competitive cycling from your friends at VeloNews.com.