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Aguirre said:well guys, start talking about omerta and so on, Delgado is in his right to defend Valverde as Gutierrez is too. Lots of riders do, (maybe I have to exclude here some riders... oh! almost all of them are English spoken...)
Some of you might be allergic to Spanish culture of cycling but let me tell you I'm highly allergical towards this English spoken hegemony in cycling...
Aguirre said:well guys, start talking about omerta and so on, Delgado is in his right to defend Valverde as Gutierrez is too. Lots of riders do, (maybe I have to exclude here some riders... oh! almost all of them are English spoken...)
Some of you might be allergic to Spanish culture of cycling but let me tell you I'm highly allergical towards this English spoken hegemony in cycling...
Mellow Velo said:Aguirre, I agree with you regarding the hypocrisy over the way English speaking riders get preferential treatment over doping. It is clearly wrong and patently unfair.
However, two wrongs don't make a right.
All Delgardo, Guti etc are doing are adding credence to the OP cover up conspiracy theory.
Libertine Seguros said:Patty wants to globalise cycling. Spanish-speaking riders are no worry because the sport is already popular in South America and other Spanish-speaking countries. Stepping up in Anglophone territories is a big pet project of his though, so we can't sacrifice the riders that are key to that.
OP has been covered up and people have pretended it doesn't exist even while exiling a number of otherwise highly talented and desirable riders to small Portuguese continental teams. But the problem with the Valverde case, at least my problem with the Valverde case, is that Valverde has been mercilessly hunted down over an extended period, cornered and finally ensnared and everybody else involved has just been allowed to stand and watch. It's incredibly totemic to ban Valverde because he's the one at the top of the sport. But why not pursue Fränk Schleck for the same reason? Basically, Valverde's success was seen as an obstacle to Patty because he was a symbol of the 'old' cyclingrolleyes
, the corrupt cycling. The other Puerto riders were mostly seen as irrelevances, they wouldn't be riding the top level races that Patty was trying to market, so they can continue to ride unabated while Valverde had to go.
I suspect that Delgado and Gutiérrez's points about the injustice are more about how Valverde has been singled out and hounded for years than his right to dope.
Oldman said:Pedro Delgado has rightfully noted the excessive length of time for the UCI to act on Valverde's case. He also felt their is damage to his generation's credibility. Is this a nationalistic media attitude or generally shared? I'm not sure what to make of it.
Aguirre said:Some of you might be allergic to Spanish culture of cycling but let me tell you I'm highly allergical towards this English spoken hegemony in cycling...
craig1985 said:If that's the case then I think they have a point.
la.margna said:i would have the same stance if valv.piti were italian, swiss, german, australian or whatever nationality. also luxembourg and other countries have not acted properly with regard to puerto.
la.margna said:don't try to divert from facts by hitlerising the issue through using nationalities. this is not about nationalities.
Libertine Seguros said:But the problem with the Valverde case, at least my problem with the Valverde case, is that Valverde has been mercilessly hunted down over an extended period, cornered and finally ensnared and everybody else involved has just been allowed to stand and watch.
Mellow Velo said:CONI only did to Valverde, what they did to secure Basso's sanction. Nothing more.
I don't call it hounding, just proper procedure.
If the Spanish legal system hadn't been so reticent about testing the samples, for whatever reason, this would have been over long ago.
Aguirre said:Some of you might be allergic to Spanish culture of cycling but let me tell you I'm highly allergical towards this English spoken hegemony in cycling...
It was only in 2009 that he was actually sanctioned in any way. He has filibustered it masterfully for a year, but let's not pretend - as plenty of people here have done in the past, myself included - that Valverde has delayed it by four years.dsut4392 said:I have to agree with Mellow, I wouldn't call it merciless hounding - if Valverde hadn't kept fighting it, he would have gone down years ago. What are the UCI supposed to do, throw out any case that the rider manages to stonewall for a year or two?
But my point is not with reference to the people they couldn't catch. There is more than enough evidence out there to damn riders like Ángel Vicioso, and David Bernabéu should be serving a life ban right now. There was the blood bag with Valverde, but it was only in 2008 that CONI got the DNA sample, then a while after that that they got the blood bag. Is there any evidence of the UCI pressuring RFEC to reopen proceedings against Zaballa, Blanco and the others?Regarding everybody else being allowed to stand and watch, in the real world you can only pursue the cases you think you can win. Do we all think Fränk Schleck is crooked? Of course, but the damning evidence of a blood bag just isn't available, so how are they supposed to catch him?
Your argument essentially amounts to "we can't catch all of them, so punishing those we do catch is unfair". Imagine if your local criminal courts behaved the same way?
He shouldn't. He'll continue to maintain his innocence, of course, but he shouldn't be treated as if he were innocent. The problem with the case is not that Alejandro Valverde has been found guilty, or even that he's been prosecuted. It's that there doesn't appear to be the motivation or desire to even attempt to prosecute several others who are just as guilty. Yes, you select your cases on the basis of the ones you think you can win, but are you seriously telling me that there are no other Puerto cases the UCI thinks it can win? Hogwash. They wanted rid of Valverde because he's still at the pinnacle of the sport, ergo he's a problem to them. They couldn't care less that half of the top 10 of the Volta a Portugal was made up of ex-Puerto names, because that's not one of the races they're trying to market worldwide, so they aren't interested in pursuing them.Valverde, unlike most riders accused of doping, got the benefit of _years_ of riding under the principle of "innocent until proven guilty". And now that he is definitively proven guilty, how can he still be expected to treated as if he were innocent all along?
Aguirre said:well guys, start talking about omerta and so on, Delgado is in his right to defend Valverde as Gutierrez is too. Lots of riders do, (maybe I have to exclude here some riders... oh! almost all of them are English spoken...)
Some of you might be allergic to Spanish culture of cycling but let me tell you I'm highly allergical towards this English spoken hegemony in cycling...
Libertine Seguros said:It was only in 2009 that he was actually sanctioned in any way. He has filibustered it masterfully for a year, but let's not pretend - as plenty of people here have done in the past, myself included - that Valverde has delayed it by four years.
But my point is not with reference to the people they couldn't catch. There is more than enough evidence out there to damn riders like Ángel Vicioso, and David Bernabéu should be serving a life ban right now. There was the blood bag with Valverde, but it was only in 2008 that CONI got the DNA sample, then a while after that that they got the blood bag. Is there any evidence of the UCI pressuring RFEC to reopen proceedings against Zaballa, Blanco and the others?
He shouldn't. He'll continue to maintain his innocence, of course, but he shouldn't be treated as if he were innocent. The problem with the case is not that Alejandro Valverde has been found guilty, or even that he's been prosecuted. It's that there doesn't appear to be the motivation or desire to even attempt to prosecute several others who are just as guilty. Yes, you select your cases on the basis of the ones you think you can win, but are you seriously telling me that there are no other Puerto cases the UCI thinks it can win? Hogwash. They wanted rid of Valverde because he's still at the pinnacle of the sport, ergo he's a problem to them. They couldn't care less that half of the top 10 of the Volta a Portugal was made up of ex-Puerto names, because that's not one of the races they're trying to market worldwide, so they aren't interested in pursuing them.
Also, CONI could have made this a lot easier by presenting the UCI with the evidence they based their decision to ban Valverde on.
Animal said:It's Valv.Piti's own fault that the case dragged on. He dragged it.
Delgado is saying that doping should be just ignored. Let the riders get on with it.
Aguirre said:well guys, start talking about omerta and so on, Delgado is in his right to defend Valverde as Gutierrez is too. Lots of riders do, (maybe I have to exclude here some riders... oh! almost all of them are English spoken...)
Some of you might be allergic to Spanish culture of cycling but let me tell you I'm highly allergical towards this English spoken hegemony in cycling...
Libertine Seguros said:I suspect that Delgado and Gutiérrez's points about the injustice are more about how Valverde has been singled out and hounded for years than his right to dope.
Libertine Seguros said:It's that there doesn't appear to be the motivation or desire to even attempt to prosecute several others who are just as guilty. Yes, you select your cases on the basis of the ones you think you can win, but are you seriously telling me that there are no other Puerto cases the UCI thinks it can win? Hogwash. They wanted rid of Valverde because he's still at the pinnacle of the sport, ergo he's a problem to them. They couldn't care less that half of the top 10 of the Volta a Portugal was made up of ex-Puerto names, because that's not one of the races they're trying to market worldwide, so they aren't interested in pursuing them.
Also, CONI could have made this a lot easier by presenting the UCI with the evidence they based their decision to ban Valverde on.
Kennf1 said:Allergic to Spanish culture of cycling? Is that the culture where judges actively block investigations, or the one where, as one rider put it, you can drive around with epo on your dashboard and no one cares?