Operación Puerto

Alejandro Valverde will be making his comeback in Movistar colors on Wednesday

Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes and six others will go on trial for suspected involvement in a doping network in cycling, according to a judge's ruling released Wednesday.

The slow hand of justice in Spain seems finally to be moving. Nearly six years after police uncovered the Operación Puerto doping ring, officials are pressing for jail time for the leading protagonists.

The positive clenbuterol test of Tour de France winner Alberto Contador has consumed the cycling world since its announcement in September. While he's never tested positive before, Contador's career has been affected almost from its start by doping allegations — often against others.

Manolo Saíz, the controversial Spanish team manager caught up in the Operación Puerto doping scandal of 2006, is plotting his return to the elite pro ranks.

Luís León Sánchez has denied reports in the Spanish daily El Mundo that he’s linked to the ongoing doping investigation dubbed “Operación Galgo” that’s centered on alleged activities by Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes.

Former Spanish mountain bike rider Alberto Leon, one of six people accused last month as part of a probe into sports doping, was found dead in an apparent suicide, reports said Monday. More soon on this developing story.

Media reports naming Óscar Pereiro as “Urko” in the Operación Puerto have been proven false after Spanish authorities have linked track and field star Marta Domínguez to the alleged code name instead.

For the first time since the team’s early days in the early 1980s, before Reynolds evolved into super-teams under the Banesto, Illes Balears and Caisse d’Epargne banners, Eusebio Unzue won’t have a major GC captain to carry the squad into the grand tours.

Spain’s notorious Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes of Operacion Puerto fame is back in the headlines again after being one of the top figures in the latest doping scandal erupting in Spain, this time focused on athletics.

Manolo Saiz — the controversial Spanish sports director who was among eight people arrested in the Operación Puerto doping scandal back in 2006 – hopes to be back in the international peloton with a new team.

Sastre, Kashechkin, Schlecks – sí; Riccò, Rasmussen, Shack – no

A profile of today's Tour de France stage winner

“We’ve had a meeting with the sponsors and all that remains are a few details. ...” said Fran Contador, who acts as his brother’s manager.

Former T-Mobile sports director Rudy Pevenage says he organized visits for Jan Ullrich to Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes, the central figure in the Operación Puerto affair.

Italian star Ivan Basso admitted the emotions were in full flow as he prepared to complete his return to the Tour de France today.

Tour de France chief Christian Prudhomme believes the quality of challenger to reigning champion Alberto Contador will make for the most openly competitive race in years.

The Tour de France is about surviving and hanging on for three weeks, but some big names are missing out this year even before the race leaves the start house with Saturday’s prologue in Rotterdam.

Ivan Basso (Liquigas) says returning to the Tour de France for the first time since 2005 makes him an outsider for victory and insists the favorite will be Alberto Contador.

Alejandro Valverde has no chance of seeing a lengthy doping ban reduced by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) if he admits to doping, according to the UCI.

While Dick Pound’s term as WADA president expired at the end of 2007, the 68-year-old former Olympic swimmer remains a member of the WADA board and still quite willing to express his opinions.

Spanish cyclist Alejandro Valverde on Monday received a two-year ban from world sport's top court, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), over his implication in the Operación Puerto drugs scandal, which erupted in 2006.

With a second Giro victory in the books, Ivan Basso is ready to start thinking about a return to the Tour de France

2010 Giro d'Italia: Wide open, with some strong contenders

After the Kazakh dropped the Russian in the last 100 meters of the last climb and cruised the final 400 meters to the line, the crowd let out an unseemly chorus of boos. That’s probably never happened before at a monumental classic.

John Wilcockson re-caps Flèche Wallonne and compares its victor to the those on the podium at the concurrent Giro del Trentino.

Restructured course opens up the Flèche

Alejandro Valverde hopes to profit from Alberto Contador's absence at the Tour of the Basque Country.

The International Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has rejected Alejandro Valverde’s challenge to his two-year suspension from competition in Italy.

José Enrique Gutiérrez – the Spanish rider who finished second to Ivan Basso in the 2006 Giro d’Italia and was later linked to the Operación Puerto doping scandal – says he is retiring because Rock Racing has not been able to secure its future.

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.

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.

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.

Rubén Plaza – one of the numerous “refugees” from the Operación Puerto doping scandal -- has landed a contract with Caisse d’Epargne for 2010.

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."

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.

Beloki plots his own comeback

The 64th Vuelta a España clicks into gear Saturday on the Assen race track with one of its deepest and most competitive fields ever. Not only are riders racing the Vuelta to prepare for the world championships, but some of the biggest names are lining up with nothing less than all-out victory as their stated goals. With none of last year’s top-3 back to defend their podium spots, the 2009 Vuelta is wide open. A challenging course well-suited for aggressive attacks in the mountains will promise to keep things interesting all the way into the final week.

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.

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.

None of last year’s top three are expected to be back, but the 2009 Vuelta a España will see a strong field for the season’s final grand tour. Last year’s winner Alberto Contador – still celebrating his Tour de France victory – has confirmed he will not defend his Vuelta title. Runner-up Levi Leipheimer, recovering from his crash at the Tour, and third-place Carlos Sastre, exhausted after racing four consecutive grand tours, are both steering clear of the Spanish tour. That leaves a huge vacuum that several top names will be jostling to fill.

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.

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.

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.