Cycling's war against doping far from won

CYCLING: As the Tour de France begins today, Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich and Francisco Mancebo, second, third and fourth last year, were all suspended yesterday on suspicion of doping. Shane Stokes reports on the what appears to be a new Festina Affair.

On November 5th, 1998, former Olympic ski champion and the then Tour de France president, Jean-Claude Killy, spoke to the audience at the presentation of the route for the following year's race. His speech was sombre, dramatic, but also determined and optimistic.

"We all touched rock bottom on July 17th this year," he stated. "If the 1998 Tour de France was chosen by history to live through this Calvary, it is because the Tour is so great. Because the Tour is so great, it lives on. And because it lives on, it will never again be the symbol of doping, but a symbol of the war against doping."

Eight years after l'Affaire Festina, it became painfully clear yesterday that the war is still far from being won. In the space of two hours the riders who finished second, third and fourth in last year's race were gone, struck off the start list and suspended by their teams. Au revoir to Ivan Basso, runner-up last year, third in 2005 and the dominant winner of this year's Tour of Italy.

Au revoir to Jan Ullrich, champion of the 1997 Tour, five times second and third in 2005. And au revoir, too, to Francisco Mancebo, who had finished just one step off the podium last year and took third in the 2005 Tour of Spain.

Although the riders have been suspended rather than found to be guilty, it was hard to see the development as anything other than a necessary cull. Ullrich and Basso were the clear favourites for this year's Tour, but now their careers may be over: the riders are set to incur a two-year suspension from cycling and a four-year ban from competing with a ProTour if they are ultimately found guilty.

They, Mancebo and a large group of other riders (not all of whom were down to do the Tour) were listed in a 500-page report released to cycling authorities yesterday, after a thorough police investigation into alleged doping practices co-ordinated by Dr Eufemiano Fuentes.

The Spaniard was one of five people arrested in the Spanish capital on May 23rd under Operación Puerto, and a subsequent search of his clinic uncovered large supplies of doping products, frozen blood and transfusion equipment believed to have been used in the blood doping of riders and other sports people.

The names of Ullrich and team-mate Oscar Sevilla had been leaked to the El Pais newspaper and the Spanish radio Cadena SER, along with those of Basso, Mancebo and up to 33 others. In all, it is suspected 58 riders may be implicated in one way or another; also rumoured to be on a wider list are competitors from the world of soccer, athletics, tennis and basketball, but these names have not yet been released.

For now, it is the Tour which is affected. Ullrich and Sevilla were removed from the T-Mobile squad yesterday because they had previously given assurances that they hadn't been in contact with Dr Fuentes. As the report left the team in no doubt that this was untrue, the riders and Ullrich's mentor, Rudy Pevenage, have been suspended pending the final outcome of the case.

Basso and Mancebo were frozen out by their respective CSC and AG2R Prévoyance teams after the association of the 20 ProTour squads in the race voted unanimously to exclude any riders who were mentioned on the Operación Puerto report, released yesterday.

The UCI then issued a list containing the identities of five other riders who will be unable to start, namely Isidro Nozal, Allan Davis, Sergio Paulinho, Joseba Beloki and Alberto Contador. All of these were part of the Astana Wurth team of another Tour favourite, Alexandre Vinokourov.

The squad had already been under considerable pressure after its then-manager, Manolo Saiz, was one of those arrested on May 23rd with doping substances in his possession.

Liberty Seguros had been the chief sponsor at the time but withdrew; Vinokourov, fifth in last year's Tour, then contacted his friend, the Kazakh prime minister Daniyal Akhmetov, and a deal was arranged whereby a conglomerate of oil and gas companies would back the team under the name of the country's capital.

However, even with that political and financial might, it appears the squad's bid has been scuppered. With six riders required as a minimum for the Tour and no substitutes permitted to take the place of those barred, the rules therefore block the remaining three riders from lining out for the Astana Wurth team in the race.

Vinokourov was fifth last year and third in 2003, but his only hope of competing in this afternoon's prologue seems to be if he can transfer to another squad. At the time of writing there was no indication if this would, or could, happen.

WHEN CONTACTED yesterday by The Irish Times, Pat McQuaid, said that he was "saddened, but not surprised" by what has happened. The Irishman took over as president of the UCI last September and has taken a more open, hard-line stance against doping than his predecessor, Hein Verbruggen. However, he nevertheless finds himself at the head of a sport which is in crisis once more.

"I'm sad that some of our top riders find themselves implicated in a doping affair. But, on the other hand, if they are eventually proven guilty then cycling is better off without them - we must insist on a clean sport," he said, while stressing that the investigation was at an early stage.

"This development is not a shock, because it is something that we knew was coming," he said. "We have known about this affair for several weeks. We have had indications as to who is going to be involved, and now we have the actual facts.

"It is a black day for cycling, but also an important one," he insisted. "I have to look at the positive side of it. It is a message to all the other riders out there that no matter how clever you think you are, you will eventually get caught out. We have to continue on from here and try to use this to clean up the sport."

Efforts to do this post-1998 have clearly not succeeded in eliminating doping. Yet McQuaid says he is hoping that lifetime bans for team managers overseeing drug programmes and closer co-operation with governments and the police will prove a greater deterrent.

"The UCI and other international federations cannot, on their own, win the fight against doping," he admits. "They need the collaboration of governments and they need collaboration with the police, because the police can go much further into something like this with their investigations than international federations can."

Indeed, the UCI is understood to have alerted the Spanish authorities as to their suspicions about certain riders and the lab in Madrid. McQuaid confirmed yesterday that this was the case. "We were involved in tipping off the authorities in Spain about the doctor and the lab. We have been in correspondence with the Spanish minister over the past couple of years as regards what we perceived to be a problem in Spain.

"We then gave him information in March of this year, concrete information about the name of the doctor involved and some details of the laboratory. We also passed this on to Wada (World Anti-doping Agency).

"I am not taking the credit for starting this investigation, but we did provide some important information to those working on it."

Today the Tour de France will set off in Strasbourg, a wounded beast once more, but one which will limp on for now. If 1998 is anything to go by, a hellish three weeks may lie ahead, with police raids, drug busts and riders strikes all possible.

Or perhaps it will be a more believable event, with slower average speeds and less spectacular performances in the high mountains.

Either way, it's a rough, tough, rocky time for the sport of cycling, and a sign that a big fight still remains.

Killy said in 1998 that the Tour would never again be the symbol of doping, but rather a symbol of the battle against doping.

The Festina affairwas a chance to make a fresh start, yet eight long years later, it is clear that the war is still being waged.