Tour de Lance bans top riders... breaking!

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Contenders Ullrich, Basso barred from Tour de FranceESPN.com news services


STRASBOURG, France -- The Tour de France was stripped of three of its biggest names on Friday after Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso and Francisco Mancebo were named in a doping investigation in Spain.

Jan Ullrich had his medical exam on Thursday but won't ride in the 2006 Tour de France.
The decision to prevent those cyclists and others from racing threw the sport's premier race into upheaval the day before it begins.

Basso finished second in last year's Tour behind American Lance Armstrong, now retired. Ullrich was third and Mancebo fourth.

Tour director Christian Prudhomme said the organizers' determination to fight doping was "total."

"The enemy is not cycling, the enemy is doping," he said.

Riders being excluded will not be replaced, meaning a smaller field than the 189 racers originally expected.

It's the biggest doping crisis to the hit the sport since the Festina scandal in 1998 nearly derailed the Tour. The Festina team was ejected from the race after customs officers found a large stash of banned drugs in a team car.

Basso, winner of the Giro d'Italia, and Ullrich -- the 1997 Tour winner and a five-time runner-up -- were among more than 50 cyclists said to have been implicated in a Spanish doping probe that has rocked the sport for weeks.

Basso, Mancebo and Ullrich's teams said Friday that because their names had come up in the probe they were being withdrawn from the Tour. Ullrich's T-Mobile squad said it also suspended rider Oscar Sevilla and sporting director Rudi Pevenage because of their involvement.

Basso was returning to Italy, his team said.

Tour officials did not immediately say how many other riders were barred from the race.

The Spanish doping scandal erupted in May when police carried out arrests and raids, seizing drugs and frozen blood thought to have been prepared for banned, performance-enhancing transfusions.

Since then, the names of riders said to have had contacts with Eufemiano Fuentes, a doctor among those arrested, have leaked in Spanish media. Ullrich was among those named.

Then, after more leaks Thursday, Spanish authorities released details from the probe to Tour organizers and other cycling bodies, showing which riders were implicated in the investigation. It was on the basis of that official information that Tour teams decided to act.

T-Mobile received information implicating Ullrich, Sevilla and Pevenage from Tour organizers, including documents from the Spanish government, team spokesman Luuc Eisenga said.

"The only thing I can tell you is that the information is clear enough and didn't leave any doubt," he said.

Another T-Mobile spokesman, Stefan Wagner, told Germany's n-tv television that the team was acting on information indicating "that there was contact between the two riders and Rudi Pevenage and the Spanish doctor ... who is at the center of this doping story."

Asked whether T-Mobile would consider cutting ties with Ullrich completely, he replied "certainly ... we are now demanding evidence of his innocence."

"If this evidence can be provided, then we have a completely new situation," he said. "If it cannot be provided, nothing will change about this situation."

Ivan Basso is headed back to Italy. "We have to protect cycling," his team manager said.
The extent of Basso's implication was not immediately clear. But his team said the suspicion hanging over him would have made his participation in the Tour difficult.

"It would be big chaos if those riders remain in the race," said the manager of Basso's team, Bjarne Riis. "We have to protect cycling."

Riis noted that Basso's contract forbids him from working with doctors from outside their CSC team.

"Ivan must prove with his lawyer that he is innocent. I believe in Ivan but I have been forced to take the necessary steps," Riis said.

Spanish rider Joseba Beloki, runner-up at the 2002 Tour and third in both 2001 and 2000, was also among those named in media reports as being linked to the scandal. It was not immediately clear whether his team, Astana-Wurth, was also withdrawing him from this year's race.

Tour organizers had earlier sought to have the entire Astana team -- which also includes favorite Alexandre Vinokourov -- excluded. But the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled against it on Thursday.

Prudhomme said Friday that the court might have ruled differently had it had access to the latest information from the Spanish probe.

"So many names" of Astana riders appear in the Spanish investigation "that it looks like a system of team doping," he said.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.


Doping in cycling
2006: Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso and Francisco Mancebo withdrawn from the Tour de France after they are named in a doping investigation in Spain.
2005: Spaniard Roberto Heras is banned for two years for testing positive for EPO in the Tour of Spain, which he won.
2004: Three riders are prevented from starting the Tour de France. Two others are kicked out the race after doping investigations. Britain's David Millar later admits to taking the blood booster erythropoietin.
1998: Festina cycling team expelled in the first week of the Tour de France after a team car was found loaded with performance-enhancing drugs. Festina rider Richard Virenque of France is later banned for six months after admitting doping.
1982: Winner of the Tour of Spain, Spanish rider Angel Arroyo, is disqualified after testing positive for amphetamines.
1967: Briton Tommy Simpson dies on a hill climb during the Tour de France. A vial containing an amphetamine was found.
-- Reuters

[Moooo]

Originally Posted by Donger

I'm not sure how you reach that conclusion. It doesn't say anything about the Discovery Team.

I would say that's cause Lance has retired...

He's been accused by this new thing out just like everyone else... Unless the article is saying these people are supposedly still using it, which I didn't get from it (though it may be the case).

Moooo

[Donger]

Originally Posted by Moooo

I would say that's cause Lance has retired...

He's been accused by this new thing out just like everyone else... Unless the article is saying these people are supposedly still using it, which I didn't get from it (though it may be the case).

Moooo

These riders have been expelled because (we can assume) that they are directly related to the raid they mention. That raid led to "seizing drugs and frozen blood thought to have been prepared for banned, performance-enhancing transfusions."

Being accused is one thing. Being caught with frozen blood and drugs is another all together.

[Moooo]

Originally Posted by Donger

These riders have been expelled because (we can assume) that they are directly related to the raid they mention. That raid led to "seizing drugs and frozen blood thought to have been prepared for banned, performance-enhancing transfusions."

Being accused is one thing. Being caught with frozen blood and drugs is another all together.

Good point, and it makes sense...

Moooo

[Logical]

Originally Posted by Moooo

I would say that's cause Lance has retired...

He's been accused by this new thing out just like everyone else... Unless the article is saying these people are supposedly still using it, which I didn't get from it (though it may be the case).

Moooo

People are on the list who saw that particular Spanish individual (Eufemiano Fuentes). Unless you know that Lance has been involved with him then I would say you are probably mistaken.

[Consistent1]

Look guys, do you really think that a cancer survivor came back to smoke everybody year after year without doing the same things that have been going on in cycling for a long time? It's like I have said on here before with guys bashing Bonds and Welbourne...ALMOST EVERY PERSON in a pro sport does things that you would consider cheating. I love Lance and all his wins are legit as can be in my book, but when in Rome.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by Consistent1

Look guys, do you really think that a cancer survivor came back to smoke everybody year after year without doing the same things that have been going on in cycling for a long time? It's like I have said on here before with guys bashing Bonds and Welbourne...ALMOST EVERY PERSON in a pro sport does things that you would consider cheating. I love Lance and all his wins are legit as can be in my book, but when in Rome.

Ironically, I don't think that he would have won the Tour a single had he NOT had cancer.

[KingPriest2]

Originally Posted by Zman

Who care's they are riding bikes not really a sport

Dumbass

[Consistent1]

Originally Posted by Donger

Ironically, I don't think that he would have won the Tour a single had he NOT had cancer.

I will agree with that 100%, but we may not have the same reasoning behind the opinion.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by Consistent1

I will agree with that 100%, but we may not have the same reasoning behind the opinion.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that he DID dope before his cancer, but not after.

[Consistent1]

Originally Posted by KingPriest2

Dumbass

Exactly! Cycling on that level is crazy hard on a mental and physical level, it is day after day of torture. You can take all the drugs you want and never have the heart to finish something like the tour. Same type of reasoning as to why Mr. Rat Canseco doesn't have 800 home runs.

[TinyEvel]

Originally Posted by Consistent1

Look guys, do you really think that a cancer survivor came back to smoke everybody year after year without doing the same things that have been going on in cycling for a long time? It's like I have said on here before with guys bashing Bonds and Welbourne...ALMOST EVERY PERSON in a pro sport does things that you would consider cheating. I love Lance and all his wins are legit as can be in my book, but when in Rome.

Not so sure. I've been following Lance since the late 80's when he was a triathlete, barely 18 and smoking national field in the olympic distance.

He won the national road race and world's and a stage in the Tour in 1993.

The guy is physically built to rule on the bike, the way his spine bends to not cramp his lungs when in a tuck, the capacity of his lungs, his heart size, the (abnormally long) length of his femurs.. all the stuff gives him a head start the way a BBaller who's 6'10" will have a height/reach advantage.

Now, it takes a whole other level of person to take all that and use it to its full potential. Cycling is about managing pain. Just like a lot of other sports. There are guys in football who get hurt and keep going. You have to have a mental ability to attack. I read that Kawika Mitchell got a lot of confidence before the 2005 season and that made a huge improvement, look at what a disappointment he was in 2004, and then this past year he was flying into dudes most of the time, or at least beginning to standout: mental improvement (according to Gun/Edwards interview I read)

Anyay, point is, there are winners, and some get there on their own, others need outside sources. I always remember Lance from the beginning being one of those guys who had it in the body and the mind. As a former competitive cyclist, I can attest to that, he had the "eye of the tiger" I believe he wasn't doping afer his comeback.

[TinyEvel]

Originally Posted by Zman

Who care's they are riding bikes not really a sport

BULLshit.

Dude, you post an average of once a year and this is it? Weak.

What defines a sport?

If it means combining skill, strength, endurance and strategy, then it is for sure.

Growing up, I wore thick glasses and couldn't hit a baseball, dunk a basketball or catch a football worth a crap. I was the last guy to get picked for teams on the playground. I was so bad the team captains just divied the rest of us up at the end:

"We'll take bubble-eyes and the Chinese kid, You can have lard-ass and the two girls"

I sucked at "sports". A failure.

But when I started riding, I could make anybody cry the way I embarased them on a bike. Drooped them on a climb like their wheels were square, and I knew what it was like to win the 100m hurdles, or hit a home run, or score a TD.

So in that sense, it is a sport. You get just as involved emotionally and physically. Maybe it doesn't have the same team dynamic as football or baseball or any of those "park sports" But you go watch a race some time. I'l admit it's pretty friggin' boring. Until there's a stack. That's one of the scariest sounds I've heard: metal and skin and elbows and knees hitting the pavement in a big tangle at 35 mph.
It happened to me, too. The first thing I did was grab my bike and try to get back in it, until I realized my wheels were shaped like Pringles, and then I noticed there were shards of skin hanging off both arms and a knee, dripping blood on my shoes.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by tinyevel

That's one of the scariest sounds I've heard: metal and skin and elbows and knees hitting the pavement in a big tangle at 35 mph.
It happened to me, too. The first thing I did was grab my bike and try to get back in it, until I realized my wheels were shaped like Pringles, and then I noticed there were shards of skin hanging off both arms and a knee, dripping blood on my shoes.

You haven't lived until you've had your chain ring cut into your interior heel after a fall. Rode the 25 miles home, though. The ER doc looked like he was going to puke when he saw all the crap in that wound.

[TinyEvel]

Originally Posted by Donger

You haven't lived until you've had your chain ring cut into your interior heel after a fall. Rode the 25 miles home, though. The ER doc looked like he was going to puke when he saw all the crap in that wound.

That's a good one.
I got a sweet ride to the hospital in an ambulance with two other guys less injured than me. The ER was already full from other people who had crashed earlier that morning, so they put me on a gurney behind a divider screen, in the hall. The nurse came over to clean my wounds, scrape the asphalt gravel and stuff out of it.
She said, "anywhere else?"

I said, "I think my back got scraped" I sat up and she said "oh my God"

The gurney sheet was a huge blotch of blood where I was lying: turns out my whole upper back was a big scrape.
That night I slept on my stomach, but rolled over in my sleep. I woke up and the sheet was stuck to my back. I had to strip it from the bed and get in the shower with it and spray warm water until it freed up and I could peel it off.
It crusted over in a big brown shell, and two days later I sneezed: the whole thing cracked like a dry lake bed.
That was one of the most painful things that has happened to me.
But no worries, it's not a sport.

[Adept Havelock]

Originally Posted by tinyevel

That's a good one.
I got a sweet ride to the hospital in an ambulance with two other guys less injured than me. The ER was already full from other people who had crashed earlier that morning, so they put me on a gurney behind a divider screen, in the hall. The nurse came over to clean my wounds, scrape the asphalt gravel and stuff out of it.
She said, "anywhere else?"

I said, "I think my back got scraped" I sat up and she said "oh my God"

The gurney sheet was a huge blotch of blood where I was lying: turns out my whole upper back was a big scrape.
That night I slept on my stomach, but rolled over in my sleep. I woke up and the sheet was stuck to my back. I had to strip it from the bed and get in the shower with it and spray warm water until it freed up and I could peel it off.
It crusted over in a big brown shell, and two days later I sneezed: the whole thing cracked like a dry lake bed.
That was one of the most painful things that has happened to me.
But no worries, it's not a sport.

Ouch...El-ie-ott....Ouch.