Posts Member

Damn. Maybe this admission will allow him to ride the Tour in 2008.

I liked Basso. Think of him as a nice guy, from what I read, and a heckuva rider. Could've been the next repetitive Tour champion.

Sad, but you reap what you sow, I guess. Let's hope he serves his sentence and makes a "clean" comeback.

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breaks my heart - liked watching cycling but now you don't know who is doping and who isn't. F#$%ing sad.

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Maybe they just can't afford to cheat?

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After Jan's positive DNA test I guess they felt it was better if he fessed up....we tend to take a better view of folks if they admit their mistakes...
You don't have to watch cycling, guessing who is clean and who isn't...you can do that at any race you go to...

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It is very unfortunate that this is all happening right now. Cycling has been given a terrible name by a small percentage of the riders who have resorted to drugs to make themselves better. It gets even worse when the high profile names like Ulrich, Basso, Hamilton, and Landis are involved. Personally, I wanted to believe that all of these people were innocent, but it looks like this is not true. So far the operation puerto implications seem to be true. I am still holding out on Landis, because I really want him to be clean. For the amount of money he is spending to defend himself one would think that he is clean, or maybe he is that determined to win the court of public opinion no matter what the costs.

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SMALL PERCENTAGE? The TdF normally has 180-188 riders. The Giro this year has 188. They confiscated 223 bags of blood in Operación Puerto. I think this is more widespread than we will ever know. - T

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If I remember correctly, there were about 200 people implicated with about 50 of them being pro riders.

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Man, that just makes me upset. I liked and repected Basso.

Basso Said:

"All my wins have been achieved in a proper and clean manner and I have every intention of returning to action and continuing with the job I love once I have paid the penalty."

After his penalty, likely he will be too old to compete well. Here is the list of guys convicted:

http://www.eurosport.com/cycling/sport_sto917127.shtml

Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso and Francisco Mancebo were among 37 riders listed in Spanish media as being named in the country's official doping report. Newspaper El Mundo published the names on Friday after a gag order on the report was lifted on Thursday.

Notably absent is Astana-Wurth rider and Tour de France hopeful Alexandre Vinokourov, but nine of the Kazakh's team-mates were implicated.

Astana Wurth: Michele Scarponi (ITA), Marcos Antonio Serrano (ESP), David Etxebarria (ESP), Joseba Beloki (ESP), Angel Vicioso (ESP), Isidro Nozal (ESP), Unai Osa (ESP), Jaksche Joorg (GER), Giampaolo Caruso (ITA)

CSC: Ivan Basso (ITA)

Caisse D'Epargne-Iles Baleares: Constantino Zaballa (ESP)

Saunier Duval: Carlos Zarate (ESP)

AG2R: Francisco Mancebo (ESP)

T-Mobile: Jan Ullrich (GER), Oscar Sevilla (ESP)

Phonak: José Enrique Gutierrez (ESP), José Ignacio Gutierrez (ESP)

Communauté de Valence: Vicente Ballester (ESP), David Bernabeu (ESP), David Rodriguez (ESP), José Adrian Bonilla (ESP), Juan Gomis Lopez (ESP), Eladio Jimenez Sanchez (ESP), David Latasa (ESP), Ruben Plaza (ESP), José Luis Martinez (ESP), Manuel Llorent (ESP), Antonio Olmo (ESP), David Munoz (ESP), Javier Cherro (ESP), Javier Pascual (ESP, former rider and current technicien)

Unibet.com: Carlos Garcia Quesada (ESP)

Previously retired or suspended for doping: Roberto Heras (ESP), Angel Casero (ESP), Santiago Perez (ESP), Tyler Hamilton (USA), Igor Gonzalez Galdeano (ESP)

Posts Member

If they eliminate all these people that have been doping(which may be a lot!)
they might let others who are not using any performance enhancing supplements into some of these tours.

Maybe they will be scraping the bottom of the barrel for honest competitors, then I will have a shot :D

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You won't fit in cuz ya don't shave your legs dude! :D

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Dammit! And I would have to sabbotage you, bryan and just about every one else on this board to get a slot :)

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http://velonews.com/news/fea/12221.0.html

"Anyone expecting great things following Ivan Basso's solemn confession that he was the "Birillo" named in Operación Puerto should sit down, take a deep breath and a deeper drink, and recall how he or she felt when told that Santa Claus, the Easter bunny and compassionate conservative George W. Bush weren't for real."

Uh huh. Tell me, who's advising these guys on their mea culpas? Teen-age boys? Because they sound without exception like a pimply stoner whose mom found a ditch-weed fatty in his backpack, trying to explain that he was only thinking about using it to get giddily sideways before dinner because he heard someone, somewhere, say that it makes meat loaf taste like filet mignon."