A Grand Tour grows near and drug allegations surface, resurface or re-resurface. Who could have predicted this?
Basso is on the hot seat again because an Italian prosecutor is looking to reopen the Puerto case against him in Italy. As much as I hate hearing cyclist after cyclist being shown to be lying cheaters, especially ones that I generally like, I prefer it happen like this. The sooner this prosecutor gets the "Birillo" bags of blood, tests them and shows them to be Basso's the better it is in my view.
The accused athlete is probably better off accepting the penalty. Even if a rider proves himself innocent, he will only return to racing about 3-5 months earlier than if he fights the sanctions and, as a bonus, he doesn't go into the poor house trying to defend himself. None of this Landis nonsense that drags on for over a year.
I can understand Landis wanting to fight. His place in history is going down the drain. What difference does it make, though? He's just made to look sillier and sillier with each new test. They protest and protest, and I do admit some of their arguments have been compelling, but now his previous negative test are shown to have synthetic testosterone in them. Time for another round of excu... err... screams of protest, "Our expert wasn't there!"
Everything is a conspiracy. There's never any logical reason behind the conspiracy, of course, but when the heart overcomes the mind the only explanation can be a dark sinister puppet-master with an outrageous French accent in conjunction with the USADA that is controlling and keeping down the poor Mennonite boy on his bike. Whatever. Bye, Floyd. I like you. You seem like a genuinely nice guy and your stage win in the '06 Tour was one of the most memorable days of racing I know. Now, go away for a while and try to reclaim what's left of your disgraced name.
So, Ms Prosecutor, test those "Birillo" bags and end this Basso soap opera just like the Ullrich saga was mercifully put to bed a few weeks ago when his blood was found with Fuentes. Test all those blood bags and rid the sport as much as possible of the cheaters. So, Alejandro, Alberto and Jorg, when you face those microphones and pronounce your innocence you better be telling the truth. From experience, however, my gut says you studied the denial playbook really well when you rattle off your answers to questions and if there are any conspiracy puppet-masters in this soap opera it is the Directeur Sportif's like Bruyneel, Riis and Lefevre that talk the talk but likely are as dirty as anyone while using the cyclists as pawns in their game.
Basso is on the hot seat again because an Italian prosecutor is looking to reopen the Puerto case against him in Italy. As much as I hate hearing cyclist after cyclist being shown to be lying cheaters, especially ones that I generally like, I prefer it happen like this. The sooner this prosecutor gets the "Birillo" bags of blood, tests them and shows them to be Basso's the better it is in my view.
The accused athlete is probably better off accepting the penalty. Even if a rider proves himself innocent, he will only return to racing about 3-5 months earlier than if he fights the sanctions and, as a bonus, he doesn't go into the poor house trying to defend himself. None of this Landis nonsense that drags on for over a year.
I can understand Landis wanting to fight. His place in history is going down the drain. What difference does it make, though? He's just made to look sillier and sillier with each new test. They protest and protest, and I do admit some of their arguments have been compelling, but now his previous negative test are shown to have synthetic testosterone in them. Time for another round of excu... err... screams of protest, "Our expert wasn't there!"
Everything is a conspiracy. There's never any logical reason behind the conspiracy, of course, but when the heart overcomes the mind the only explanation can be a dark sinister puppet-master with an outrageous French accent in conjunction with the USADA that is controlling and keeping down the poor Mennonite boy on his bike. Whatever. Bye, Floyd. I like you. You seem like a genuinely nice guy and your stage win in the '06 Tour was one of the most memorable days of racing I know. Now, go away for a while and try to reclaim what's left of your disgraced name.
So, Ms Prosecutor, test those "Birillo" bags and end this Basso soap opera just like the Ullrich saga was mercifully put to bed a few weeks ago when his blood was found with Fuentes. Test all those blood bags and rid the sport as much as possible of the cheaters. So, Alejandro, Alberto and Jorg, when you face those microphones and pronounce your innocence you better be telling the truth. From experience, however, my gut says you studied the denial playbook really well when you rattle off your answers to questions and if there are any conspiracy puppet-masters in this soap opera it is the Directeur Sportif's like Bruyneel, Riis and Lefevre that talk the talk but likely are as dirty as anyone while using the cyclists as pawns in their game.
3 Comments:
I think it'd be a larf if the Birillo blood bags turned out to be Rebellin...it's nealry an anagram of his name. Now would the prosecution for such a case have to be co-prosecuted by both Italy and Argentina? ;)
I would be howling if Basso was cleared and then still rode away from everyone at the Giro!
So you don't think the various ADAs should be held to high standards? The fact that they are run so shoddily doesn't bother you?
"But Landis, whatever you think of him, has jabbed his finger at a central flaw and hypocrisy in the doping system: The WADA accepts all kinds of sloppy mistakes from the Chatenay-Malabry lab that it would never accept from an athlete. Drink from the wrong bottle, take the wrong allergy remedy, make a mistake on a form or forget to show up for a drug test, and you face a two-year ban, maybe worse, regardless of the innocence of your mistake or legitimacy of your excuse.
If you work for an accredited doping lab, on the other hand, you can apparently mislabel, misplace, mishandle, and, for all we know, knock over a glass of fume blanc on the specimen, and the WADA will defend your work."
This doesn't bother you Jaquermeart?
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