Ricco' confesses - 'the blame is all mine'

Salsiccia

Ricco' has confessed to taking CERA, and said he took it because he was so tired after the Giro:

http://www.gazzetta.it/Ciclismo/Primo_Piano/2008/07_Luglio/30/ricco.shtml

translation

calvjones

As I suspected - he's been clean until the tour :roll:

jimmythecuckoo

cynical answer would be "plea bargaining"

Coriander

Ah bless him - he says it's an error of his youth.

He also points out that the testing is somewhat erractic as all of his results should have come back positive but only two did.

Also says it's the first time he's taken PED and that before he always 'won with his legs'.

Kléber

Faced with overwhelming evidence, it's step up from the Landis "OJ Simpson" defence but hardly a full confession

I await news as to who supplied him, which soigneur injected it, who else knew about it and more.

richa

Coriander wrote:

He also points out that the testing is somewhat erractic as all of his results should have come back positive but only two did.

Will the labs do further testing to see if they can retrospectively find anything in his negative tests? It is worrying if the testing procedure only sometimes picks up a positive.

Yorkman

The Italian authorities don't test anything like as rigorously as they do in the Tour; In fact they probably turn a blind eye to it..

Compare the number of riders positive in the Giro compared to the tour every year.

When did an Italian last test positive in the Giro - was it as long ago as Pantani?

afx237vi

Yorkman wrote:

When did an Italian last test positive in the Giro - was it as long ago as Pantani?

No, it was Maximimiliano Richeze in the pre-race medical this year.

dulldave

Given that his suspicious blood levels at the Giro meant he was targetted during the Tour, his excuse doesn't hold much water.

alanmcn1

WANKER

donrhummy

His three most interesting comments:

"I made a mistake and the mistake is only mine," Riccò told reporters outside the closed hearing.

Does anyone here really believe that it was just him doping? That his team manager/DS had no inkling that there was doping going on? Remember that his DS had the opportunity to do an internal testing program like CSC/Astana/High-Road and chose not to (Millar's comments). Is the team management really blameless? Or is he saying that because he doesn't want to be blackballed by management and hated by his teammates (because if management was complicit, that would probably be the end of the team)?

"After the Giro, I had no plans to go to the Tour, and that is why I have taken the substance," Riccò said. "I made a mistake of youth."

Really? He rode away from people at the Giro on a few stages just as he did at the TDF. Do we really believe that he was clean there? Perhaps they should go back and retest those samples...

"Of the 10 controls taken, only two were positive. In theory all the tests should have been positive, therefore the method needs to be checked," he said.

THIS is a really good point! If he was doping the whole time (which I think everyone here believes) then why did only two tests show positive? That is disconcerting. It means that they're not infallible tests as they usually claim. And having them go back and now "finding" those tests positive won't make me feel comfortable about it. I could see them faking that they found the others positive. Instead, I want them to bring in some outside help to look at those other tests/samples about 1000 times till they figure out either how to find the drugs in those tests/samples or why it's not showing up and fixing the test procedures.

neilfitton

I have to agree that the worrying thing is the missed results does this mean it could happen the other way round ?? (probably not but ........)

Something else that has bothered me is that we always talk about the superhuman effort of the mountains but what about Schumacers TT result which were completely unexpected and the fact that he held his own in many of the mountain stages and attacked like a monster all the way through the tour !!

I think teh whole thing is getting out of control !!! :evil:

Yorkman

A Saunier Duval rider using EPO and getting caught.

Almost, but not quite, the sanctimonious David Millar all over again, but he'd left SD by the time he was caught.

LangerDan

donrhummy wrote:

"I made a mistake and the mistake is only mine," Riccò told reporters outside the closed hearing.

Does anyone here really believe that it was just him doping? That his team manager/DS had no inkling that there was doping going on? Remember that his DS had the opportunity to do an internal testing program like CSC/Astana/High-Road and chose not to (Millar's comments). Is the team management really blameless? Or is he saying that because he doesn't want to be blackballed by management and hated by his teammates (because if management was complicit, that would probably be the end of the team)?
.

We do tend to accept that line of argument when a rider on a French team is found positive -i.e the actions of a "lone gunman" and certainly not indicative of systematic doping. However that fact that Piepoli got the boot tends to weaken his case somewhat.

In any case, Scott have seem to have taken the whole team structure on unchanged so who knows.

campagsarge

Anyone read the article in pro-cycling this month by Antoine Vayer? Quite shocking, although I wish he had not written it in the third person but I guess litigation forced his hand.

Really, I fail to see how anyone around Ricco did not know what he was up to. I would really like a journalist to ask Ricco the question: 'Where you using EPO during the Giro and if you say you where clean would you be willing to have your sample's retrospectively tested by the same lab that the Tour uses?'

I would quite like someone to ask Contador the same question.

mooro

Yorkman wrote:

A Saunier Duval rider using EPO and getting caught.

Almost, but not quite, the sanctimonious David Millar all over again, but he'd left SD by the time he was caught.

Millar went to Saunier Duval after his ban, i think he was with Coldifis when he was caught, but not entirely sure.

Jajacp

I wondered when in one of Daniel Friebe's blogs early on in the tour he said a couple of results had raised eyebrows in the press corps, but he didn't need to tell us which ones, whether he meant Schumacher (as well as Ricco).

jimmythecuckoo

Schumacher makes me very suspicious. With his history and his performances from virtually no-where in the Tour, I would not be surprised to see him fail a test at some point in the future.

DavidBelcher

Yorkman wrote:

A Saunier Duval rider using EPO and getting caught.

Almost, but not quite, the sanctimonious David Millar all over again, but he'd left SD by the time he was caught.

Millar was nabbed a good while before he joined SD - he was on the Cofidis squad at the time.

David

campagsarge

What has climbing machine Kohl done before wining the KOM and being third in Le Tour?

emadden

campagsarge wrote:

What has climbing machine Kohl done before wining the KOM and being third in Le Tour?

Kohl has always been a very good climber. He has been riding very well all year. I recall him climbing very very very well in this years Tour of Romandy

alanmcn1

Kohl has shown climbing promise for a good few years, and was dropped like a stone by T-mobile for not getting the results they hoped (not getting with the blood doping programme)...............think before you ask

I wouldnt be too surprised, as a scientist, if not all Ricco's samples were actually tested.......they got him on his stage 4 sample, thats actually pretty early, and i reckon probably a target (he'll dope for the TT). Waste of money to test for substances in a sample when you have already caught him

campagsarge

emadden wrote:

Kohl has always been a very good climber. He has been riding very well all year. I recall him climbing very very very well in this years Tour of Romandy

Fair enough, good on him in that case.

mooro

jimmythecuckoo wrote:

Schumacher makes me very suspicious. With his history and his performances from virtually no-where in the Tour, I would not be surprised to see him fail a test at some point in the future.

I guess this depends on whether or not he gets a new contract as his is up for renewal, I assume he will then drop back to previous performance levels

dave_1

ban Ricco for life

victorponf

Dave_1 wrote:

ban Ricco for life

A muzzle for Ricco for life

iainf72

Dave_1 wrote:

ban Ricco for life

Why?

The rules say up to 2 years for first offence. Give him 2 years and move on.

Titanium

Ricco doped because he thought his wonder drug would let him get through the testing, not because he knew he'd get a one or two year ban. A life ban isn't going to stop some, especially guys in the last years of their pro riding.
You can ban the guy but what about the soigneurs, the dealers, the doctors. Ban Ricco for life and you still have the same guys ready to corrupt the next promising signing, that is if they haven't already been doping in their amateur days.
Like it's been said, if this was some solo action, did he discover the drug himself, buy it himself, dose it himself and inject it himself? The answer is no, so for all his "it's just me" bull, we need to move onto those who supplied him. I don't think Leonardo Piepoli coincidentally did the same thing, someone was working with them both.
Once again this looks like a minimal confession. He's been caught red handed and is trying to take all the blame, the omerta lives on and on as he protects others.

dave_1

iainf72 wrote:

Dave_1 wrote:

ban Ricco for life

Why?

The rules say up to 2 years for first offence. Give him 2 years and move on.

Life bans will not do a damn thing to stop doping...but he should not be there...a new amatuer should get his spot, he does not deserve a spot on a pro team again..

iainf72

donrhummy wrote:

THIS is a really good point! If he was doping the whole time (which I think everyone here believes) then why did only two tests show positive? That is disconcerting. It means that they're not infallible tests as they usually claim.

Find the results of the Danish ADA's study into the EPO tests and you will see this is perfectly normal. They just don't work a huge amount of the time.

So you'll get away with it 80% of the time. The net is closing -- Slowly but it's closing.

3 guys who were tested got bust for it which means that 12 other who were tested for it got off scott free.

iainf72

Dave_1 wrote:

Life bans will not do a damn thing to stop doping...but he should not be there...a new amatuer should get his spot, he does not deserve a spot on a pro team again..

Maybe this guy?

http://www.cuttingedgemuscle.com/Forum/ ... genumber=1

I bet he goes really fast.

:P