Xavier Tondo theory ?

cougie

Just reading the May edition of Triathlete magazine and it has an article on doping in sport.
The author makes the point that exposing doping rings 'can be life threatening in a Mafioso sort of way' and then goes onto link his sad death with the garage door to his exposing a doping ring a few months earlier ?

I've never heard of this idea before - but I've never fully understood the accident either. His training partner was meant to be there - so the author seems to be implicating him in it ? Without any evidence as far as I can see ? Bizarre.

Tusher

I couldn't grasp the technicalities of the garage door thing, but it did appear to be a tragic accident.

RichN95.

If the Mafia want you dead they just shoot you. They don't rely on bizarre schemes involving garage doors.

It was an accident.

cougie

<searches through the edited out bits in the Godfather trilogy>

Yes - that's a very good point !

Murr X

I was under the impression that it was not by any means a "doping ring" as such that he exposed but rather an email received by him from people whom he did not know. A Spanish friend of mine who rode with and knew Tondo was quite saddened by his death when last speaking to him about it at the time last May, there was certainly no hostility towards Tondo from him or any other pros for reporting the matter to the police. If Tondo had exposed something significant there certainly would not have been many saddened by his death in Spain. But he would not have paid the price with his life either and I am quite sure of that.

Tragic accidents do happen.

R.I.P.

Murr X

Yellow Peril

RichN95 wrote:

If the Mafia want you dead they just shoot you. They don't rely on bizarre schemes involving garage doors.

It was an accident.

Exactly this. Just as super criminals do not leave spies tied a block for a couple of hours to get cut in half, balls first, by a laser. If it was a drug thing he would have been shot or would have disappeared never to be seen again.

knedlicky

That Tondo’s death might be attributable to a mafia doping ring was a topic discussed last October on a French cycling forum, when most contributors felt it wasn’t the case despite the garage door apparently being electrically-controlled, not a simple manually-controlled one.

One of the contributors posted this link, a video supposedly showing the Spanish police searching the flat and garage of an unnamed cyclist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLpTDnevlcs&

But other contributors doubted the veracity of the video, especially because at 2-07 an Armstrong poster is momentarily seen!

Tusher

I don't doubt it was an accident for a moment, but aren't electrically opened garage doors slower than manually operated up-and-over ones? At the risk of appearing gruesome, I couldn't work out why he had died.

afx237vi

It does seem slightly distasteful discussing this, but I was under the impression the car rolled down the driveway and pinned him against the door, but I may be mistaken.

Tusher

That makes sense now, thanks afx. Bizarre and horrible, horrible, horrible. I read his friend, who was going riding with him, was in shock afterwards as he could do nothing to prevent it happening.

ms_tree

cougie wrote:

His training partner was meant to be there - so the author seems to be implicating him in it ? Without any evidence as far as I can see ? Bizarre.

His training partner was Intxausti and he was there - which if you had scrolled back through the news reports to that story last year you would know.

cougie

Yes - that's what I said.

timoid.

I really don't think there is anything more to this than some idle keyboard warriors reaching for a story that ain't there.

I think people should just respect the man and let him rest in peace, remembering him as one of the good guys.

cougie

True - I was surprised to read it in print in a respectable magazine. (well OK it was triathlon I suppose).