Sastre implicated?

CraigH

http://sporten.tv2.dk/cykling/article.p ... 49060.html
http://www.canadiancyclist.com/default2.html

nowt on Cycling News yet.


Update:

Here is the English translation of the sporten.tv2.dk article:

Carlos Sastre and three other CSC Saxo Bank-riders are suspected of having used doping in the Tour de France this year. It writes the Belgian newspaper Le Soir.

The three remaining rider from Riis’ crew is allegedly Frank Schleck, Fabian Cancellara and Stuart O’Grady.

“We have certainly heard nothing officially from the team, so it is difficult to say no to. It is hoped that the authorities will arise out properly and not through an intermediary a Belgian newspaper. If we had riders who had spent CERA, our anti - doping program have uncovered it, “said Brian Nygaard, press for Team CSC Saxo Bank, according sporten.dk.

Monday testing the French doping agency suspicious blood samples from the Tour this year. It happens after a new method which can detect the use of EPO product, CERA. A total of 14 riders to test.

salsarider79

Were these rumours spread by Cadel Evans?

timoid.

Makes sense why they are being so careful retesting the samples. Don't want to bust another Tour winnner unless it can be proven beyond doubt that the right proceedures are used.

squired

Given that CSC have the independent testing to avoid this sort of thing it would be a huge blow if even one of those names was found to be positive.

Kléber

How is paying someone to check your team independent? It's like a mob boss hiring a policeman to visit him a few times a year at home to check he's not "whacking" rivals. It's like the UCI Vampires testing riders in the early morning, not minutes before a race. A lot of the financial mess at the moment is because the ratings agencies charged with evaluating the riskiness of a bond were paid by those selling the bonds.

In each case, there is a massive conflict of interest, you cannot talk of independence. The police are dependent on the crooks for their income. If Damsgaard catches the crooks, he's unemployed. Independent?

You can say these screening programs are good but I tend to follow a line shared by iainf (missing in action) that they also allow riders to give the image of being clean, that by knowing the control process in place, riders and doctors can design doping regimes to sail through these tests and so cloak themselves in a false cloak of reassurance.

emadden

Cancellara's story has just broken here in switzerland:


http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/sport/weite ... y/16291119 :shock: :shock: :shock:


Rough Translation from google:

Shock for Fabian Cancellara: Doping Allegations

In a Belgian newspaper, the Swiss Olympic time-trial champion with the doping agents Cera linked. He asserts his innocence.

The reason for the accusation in the Belgian media are 14 samples of the Tour de France, the French anti-doping laboratory AFLD again will investigate. They are in Lausanne on again recently only been detectable Epo variant Cera tested. Four of them are committed by drivers of the Danish CSC Saxo Bank teams come. AFLD chief Pierre Bordry said that it was also top of the tour. "Some will be in the next few days, sleep badly," said Bordry.

The newspaper "Le Soir" relies on supposedly "secure sources" and designate next to the Swiss Fabian Cancellara, his teammate Stuart O'Grady, Fränk Schleck and Tour winner Carlos Sastre as a driver whose blood samples have been conspicuous, and therefore now again on the Epo funds Cera will be investigated.

Connection with World Cup rejection

The suspicion Cancellaras in the Belgian newspaper should also with its rejection for the World Cup last week in Varese related. The 27-year-old Bernese was twice in a row last time-trial world champion been abandoned but after the Olympic victory in this discipline as well as the bronze medal in the road race title on the fighting in northern Italy.

"On Friday, new findings become known. I can wait calmly to this, "said Cancellara compared Tagesanzeiger.ch / news network. He had a clear conscience, he assured. "If I ever tested positive, then it is because someone manipulated," says Cancellara continues.

Ach time already tested

During the Tour de France, Cancellara had been tested eight times - especially at the beginning. The organizers had announced that drivers with "abnormal levels" to test rigorously. So mired during the tour of Italians Riccardo Ricco and Leonardo Piepoli, the Spaniard Manuel Beltran and Moises Duenas Colombians in the Cera-doping case.

Steve Tcp

Well I have to say that occasionally Cancellara has been startlingly better than his rivals, enough to make THAT thought cross my mind - plus it concerns me greatly that he's already talking about foul play as in manipulated samples (accepted that true meaning may heve been lost in translation). However, it has to be said that if Schleck, Cancellara and O’Grady, let alone Sastre, fall foul of doping rules then surely it must be the end of Bjarne Riis's involvement in cycling. Apart from admitting doping as a rider, this would mean he's the manager of a team with rather too much doping going on for him to not know about it. After hanging Basso out to dry can he really get away with "sacrificing" more riders without being found to have blood on HIS OWN hands?

Kléber

If these guys are caught doping, it'll be the end of the team and the sport will plunge into another crisis, yet another Tour winner will be tainted. Forget whether Riis is involed, the entire team will fold and many other teams will feel the shockwaves.

cougie

Stuey was long time Credit Ag though wasnt he ? I thought that was a clean team, and he hasnt been any more impressive with CSC has he ?

afx237vi

If CSC really have been running an organised doping campaign after 2006 (ie after Damsgaard), then it would be the biggest sporting con since... well, I don't even know.

It'll be a huge kick in the nuts for their fans, I do know that. CSC, more than any other team in cycling, seem to have a big, devoted fanbase, and part of that was because they were touting themselves as open, transparent and clean.

If CSC goes down, cycling will find itself in a very bad way. Why not Columbia or Garmin? How can we believe anything we see?

afx237vi

cougie wrote:

Stuey was long time Credit Ag though wasnt he ? I thought that was a clean team, and he hasnt been any more impressive with CSC has he ?

He stopped trying to be a sprinter, so it's quite hard to compare his career at CSC with his career pre-CSC.

His biggest win did come at CSC. And he was climbing surprisingly well at the Tour this year... along with Voigt and Fab C.

wildmoustache

afx237vi wrote:

If CSC really have been running an organised doping campaign after 2006 (ie after Damsgaard), then it would be the biggest sporting con since... well, I don't even know.

It'll be a huge kick in the nuts for their fans, I do know that. CSC, more than any other team in cycling, seem to have a big, devoted fanbase, and part of that was because they were touting themselves as open, transparent and clean.

If CSC goes down, cycling will find itself in a very bad way. Why not Columbia or Garmin? How can we believe anything we see?

I agree. If they are busted then it's very hard really to believe in anyone. That said, Kleber is right that paying someone to check on you makes that person a dependent, not an independent.

We need genuinely independent authorities to take control of the whole thing. Why, if it's so important to the sport is it left up to teams to decide how far they want to go.

It's unbelievable this crap hasn't been sorted given what happened in 06 and 07.

timoid.

cougie wrote:

Stuey was long time Credit Ag though wasnt he ? I thought that was a clean team, and he hasnt been any more impressive with CSC has he ?

Paris Roubaix?

Become a decent climbing domestique too.

cougie

Damn. Thought he was with Credit Ag then..

Hmmmm......

Kléber

He used to ride with Gan, forerunner of CA, but that was at the time when "anything goes", pre-Festina.

jimmythecuckoo

Was anyone not suspicious when they were riding Disco like tempo through the mountains in the Tour?

I was, I feared for Cancellara and Voight then and I still do now.

This will be a disaster for the sport and the Tour and for Prudhomme and no mistake.

jimmythecuckoo

Was anyone not suspicious when they were riding Disco like tempo through the mountains in the Tour?

I was, I feared for Cancellara and Voight then and I still do now.

This will be a disaster for the sport and the Tour and for Prudhomme and no mistake.

damage36

Innocent until proved guilty. Burying yourself on one climb, and crawling over the rest of the course (i.e. Stuey on the alpe d'huez stage) isn't a magic transformation that must be down to drugs.
If CSC are doping this would be huge, this could really really damage cycling. I hope to god they're not.

jimmythecuckoo

Agree with that to an extent, but the adage about innocent until proven guilty would mean that Basso had never done anything wrong and never been banned (wouldnt it?)

Ramanujan

I said on here during the TDF that Cancellara's performances over the big colls was extremley suspect.
I got shot down in flames by people saying no....he's clean...he's on a clean team etc
This guy was pulling the peleton over haut category climbs and sitting on the front all day for Sastre.
I wouldn't be at all suprised if he was charged, esp since he pulled out of the worlds TT.

jimmythecuckoo

That wasnt a good omen, was it?

There were a few who vanished from the worlds last minute.

unclemalc

Damn! One by one the 'heroes' get busted. Particular favourites of mine were Stuey O'Grady and Jens Voigt. The latter has not been mentioned yet but O'Grady - for me that would be a kick in the sack.
Fingers crossed people.... :shock:

Tom Butcher

Not looking good at all - just as the sport in this country is starting to gain credibility with a wider audience too thanks to the track squad at the Olympics and the likes of Cav and Cooke on the road this has the potential to undo it all at a stroke.

You'd like to think it's just rumour but CSC have put in some unbelievably strong performances in the last few years - and like others I looked at their big men riding on the front in the mountains and wondered. Fingers crossed this time it turns out there is nothing to it as I can't imagine it'll help get a GB road team a sponsor - though I suppose the going rate might be a bit cheaper !

cougie

Hmmm - so all the 'commando camps' - maybe they werent responsible for the good performances eh ? Hope not tho.

Festina tried to say that they had titanium threads in their kit to help them ride better...

jimmythecuckoo

Listening to the worlds commentary, Emma said she found Bjarne Riis' body language at the Saxo Bank/IT Factory press conference wasn't great.

I didnt catch the whole piece but she did mention drugs as part of the conversation.

Kléber

Cancellara did lead up the Croix de Fer but there's a flat bit in the middle and that's where he was doing the work, so it wasn't that surprising for me. But I was shocked to see the team leading the charge up the Tourmalet, to see Voigt dropping Valverde and others.

Ramanujan

Not looking good at all

I think it's good.
I'm so pleased that finally they are getting to grips with this.
I personally don't care what it takes, if the whole sport goes down the toilet.
If that's what needs to be done for the sport to be clean, then so be it.

Eventually it will come back stronger for it, although it might take a long time.

Sad to say I remember Voigt giving an impassioned speech along these lines at the TDF, I think. If he gets caught in the CERA trap, what a bitter irony that would be.

Doom

Kléber wrote:

Voigt dropping Valverde and others.

I don't think this is a convincing arguement.

Voigt has performed on the climbs in other Tours and he is known for pushing himself harder than most. there is a youtube video where he describes this same day saying that he could taste blood in his mouth he was going so hard.

Valverde blows hot and cold in every stage race he competes in. Most other climbers were in the lead group that day.

cougie

I dont think this is a good thing. I'd rather that the teams were clean.

If a proudly announced clean team was found to dope - then it would be a massive blow to the sport. Huge.

RichN95.

Am I the only one who thinks that little will come of these re-tests and that most will be clean (for CERA at least)?

The media articles in the last few days have been full of rumour and innuendo and words like 'suspicious' (how suspicious?).

I reckon no more than two riders busted.

calvjones

Ramanujan wrote:

I said on here during the TDF that Cancellara's performances over the big colls was extremley suspect.
I got shot down in flames by people saying no....he's clean...he's on a clean team etc
This guy was pulling the peloton over haut category climbs and sitting on the front all day for Sastre.
I wouldn't be at all suprised if he was charged, esp since he pulled out of the worlds TT.

Yeah, people on here were telling me I knew fk all about cycling when I said the same thing during the Tour. Now, as then, I'd still love to be proved wrong, but CSC went postal in a big way and it didn't look good.