Italian federation confirms ban on all riders with doping pasts

[icefire]

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/italian-federation-confirms-ban-on-all-riders-with-doping-pasts

Will we see riders taking their federation to CAS?

 

[boomcie]

Italy really seems to take the whole doping thing very serious. The CONI goes after it's own cyclists as well as after Valverde and now the federation also shows it's balls.

I respect it, but it's going to be pretty controversial.

 

[la.margna]

Let's hope other countries join Italy. Really seems they are one of the few countries rigorously fighting doping/cheating. Keep up the good work Italy!

 

[Havetts]

The Dutch National Federation is trying to get the same rule through, following the Italians.

 

[El Pistolero]

Italy really seems to take the whole doping thing very serious. The CONI goes after it's own cyclists as well as after Valverde and now the federation also shows it's balls.

I respect it, but it's going to be pretty controversial.

Easier for Phil to rack up world champion titles in the future

Seriously if I was Italian I'd try and get a Swiss nationality or something and I certainly wouldn't be living there as a cyclist(police actions and stuff lol)

 

[Mrs John Murphy]

It would be nice to see other federations follow this policy - but I doubt that many will, especially those with a very thin talent pool ie UK, but again it brings into sharper focus those feds that are serious about anti-doping and those who aren't.

 

[TERMINATOR]

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/italian-federation-confirms-ban-on-all-riders-with-doping-pasts

Will we see riders taking their federation to CAS?

No, you won't (if they do they will get tossed out because there's no legal grounds for it).

I could take this new rule more seriously if Paolo Bettini weren't the MANAGER of the Italian national team, since he's one of the biggest dopers in the history of the sport. And anyone who doesn't know that already probably thinks Pantani never doped either since he never tested positive, just like Bettini.

I notice it doesn't mention anything about being precluded from representing Italy on the Olympic team though. What am I suppose to read into that?... That these riders are so bad and have done such a bad thing, that Italy is going to allow them to represent the country on the world stage during the Olympic Games?

I'm skeptical.

 

[TERMINATOR]

Let's hope other countries join Italy. Really seems they are one of the few countries rigorously fighting doping/cheating. Keep up the good work Italy!

Be careful for what you wish for.... So you think that riders like Amber Neben and Tom Zirbel and Flavia Oliviera should be banned for life?

The problem with these rules is it makes no distinction between chronic, intentional EPO dopers and those who tested positive due to ingestion of contaminated supplements (i.e. inadvertent use).

Not that you people make that distinction since you usually employ the same knee-jerk superficial logic into every thread.

 

[rhubroma]

No, you won't (if they do they will get tossed out because there's no legal grounds for it).

I could take this new rule more seriously if Paolo Bettini weren't the MANAGER of the Italian national team, since he's one of the biggest dopers in the history of the sport. And anyone who doesn't know that already probably thinks Pantani never doped either since he never tested positive, just like Bettini.

I notice it doesn't mention anything about being precluded from representing Italy on the Olympic team though. What am I suppose to read into that?... That these riders are so bad and have done such a bad thing, that Italy is going to allow them to represent the country on the world stage during the Olympic Games?

I'm skeptical.

There's probably a provision in the rule saying that exceptions can be granted if the athlete shows "remorse" or "cooperation." Italy is one of those countries that prosecutors everyone...but then they always give these "suspended" jail sentences, which is a legal way of saying, no jail....except to our girl Foxy Knoxy, who everyone knows is innocenté. How many college girls in the United States stab their female roommate to death for not engaging in a threesome? Does that theory pass the laugh test?

Not a single such case in the United States in the past 30 years of something similar...yet I'm suppose to believe that this girl Amanda Fox did that. And this girl acts like a silly floozy college chick...she's not even hardcore. Chick doesn't even have a tramp stamp on her back. No way she cut that chick.

Italy is a Catholic country, therefore, the possibility of redemption is emphasized over punishment.

In any event, if Italy is making a show of force, hypocritical though it may be, then what are the other nations really doing? Your caustic position, so typical from you, would be perfectly justifiable if but what your country was doing were anything better.

As far as the "Foxy Knoxy" story goes the "Little House on the Prarie" farytail was not a consideration in the case. But can we really admire, and I don't even know if she is guilty or not, all the US propaganda when there was an OJ verdict, or a Guantanamo, or Marine pilot Capt. Richard Ashby striking the Mount Cermis ski lift near Cavalese, Italy? Oh, but I forgot, you're always on the side of freedom and justice. What I can attest to with certainty, however, is that when these American students get away from the homeland then the inebriation of being outside the sheltered reality often leads to them loosing their minds: striping in public squares because drunk, falling out of 4th story windows for the same reason, jumping off bridges, etc.

And I don't defend Italy for its hypocrisy, but at least let's not attack it with our own now shall we, which is merely racist and therefore unsupportable. The air must be thin up there from your high vantage.

 

[ElChingon]

If all countries apply it the world champion that year won't even be on a ProTour team.

I suspect after a couple years of not even placing the Azzuri fans will make CONI change that rule to something that will give them a chance at placing.

 

[luckyboy]

Good to get the final rule after a few variations were thrown out there, and the WC ban too.

I guess you can say that this is just punishing riders who have already been punished, but it's an added disincentive to dope/get caught anyway.

 

[greenedge]

No Petacchi for the WC, shame. Guardini and Appollonio shall get to race though hopefully as well as Bennati.

 

[auscyclefan94]

I surprisingly don't like it. Yes it may act as a detterant to doping but what is the point of being allowed to come back from a ban if you are not allowed to compete in some races? You may as well just ban them for life. Seems unfair to me.

 

[Mrs John Murphy]

If all countries apply it the world champion that year won't even be on a ProTour team.

I suspect after a couple years of not even placing the Azzuri fans will make CONI change that rule to something that will give them a chance at placing.

I am not so sure. The Italian team selection has always been problematic and very political.

This is a good way of weeding out the field, and making it a lot easier to pick the team.

You lose Basso, Scarponi, Petacchi, Ballan, Sella, DDL, Garzelli etc

But you retain - Nibs, Cunego, Bennati, Ferrari, Guardini, Pozzato, Visconti, etc etc (ha ha)

I don't think that the Italian team loses too much by losing some of those riders. It makes it slightly easier as well to pick the team.

It is more of a symbolic issue and a way of putting blue water between those feds that are tough on doping and those that are not.

 

[TERMINATOR]

Italy is a Catholic country, therefore, the possibility of redemption is emphasized over punishment.

Any country that integrates religion into its judicial philosophy is seriously messed up.

While your little redemption theme sounds noble in the way you presented it, why don't you let us know how a homosexual would feel being tried in Italy since the very same Catholic religion says gays should be killed.

Thanks.

 

[TERMINATOR]

In any event, if Italy is making a show of force, hypocritical though it may be, then what are the other nations really doing? Your caustic position, so typical from you, would be perfectly justifiable if but what your country was doing were anything better.

USADA prosecutes everyone. Floyd Landis...Tyler Hamilton...next is Lance Armstrong.

CONI prosecutes DiLuca three times and after the third time still won't give the guy a 2 year ban! DiLuca should have been given a life suspension.

Garzelli is still racing. Pantani was NEVER prosecuted. Cipollini was never prosecuted. Bettini was never prosecuted. C'mon.

The only decent prosecutions by CONI were Rebellin, Pettachi, and Valverde (non-Guido).

Also, CONI almost never does unannounced doping tests like USADA does to its licensed athletes. That's the biggest scam in all countries outside of the United States - they rarely give unannounced tests.

USADA has the only website in the world to post the number of tests and athlete names tested on a public website. That's transparency! Name one other anti-doping agency that does that? ZERO. None. They're all frauds.

If all the other anti-doping agencies posted the number of athletes they tested every year and who was tested, you'd find that USADA tests many more athletes - by a factor of 10. But such a comparison is impossible because all the other agencies don't even disclose that information in order to keep their little corruption a secret.

You seem to be fooled by press releases from these agencies.

 

[AussieGoddess]

I notice it doesn't mention anything about being precluded from representing Italy on the Olympic team though. What am I suppose to read into that?... That these riders are so bad and have done such a bad thing, that Italy is going to allow them to represent the country on the world stage during the Olympic Games?

I'm skeptical.

if they cant ride in the National Championships ... how are they going to be selected for the Olympic team

I understand that different countries have different selection methods, but surely you would need to do well in the national road race or time trial in order to be selected for the team?

 

[TERMINATOR]

As far as the "Foxy Knoxy" story goes the "Little House on the Prarie" farytail was not a consideration in the case. But can we really admire, and I don't even know if she is guilty or not, all the US propaganda when there was an OJ verdict, or a Guantanamo, or Marine pilot Capt. Richard Ashby striking the Mount Cermis ski lift near Cavalese, Italy?

If you guys don't want us dropping your cable cars to the valley floor with a wing slice, then don't let U.S. military operate flights in your country. So blame that one on whoever in Italy allowed U.S. Marines to operate in that region (from a NATO base). Notice how we don't let Italian planes fly here in the U.S..... that's why our cable cars stay attached to the cable.

 

[TERMINATOR]

if they cant ride in the National Championships ... how are they going to be selected for the Olympic team

I understand that different countries have different selection methods, but surely you would need to do well in the national road race or time trial in order to be selected for the team?

In the United States, the national championships is not used for Olympic team selection. World Cups and worlds is used as automatic qualifiers, but for the most part its selection-based.

Most top pros skip their national championships.

 

[TERMINATOR]

As far as the "Foxy Knoxy" story goes the "Little House on the Prarie" farytail was not a consideration in the case. But can we really admire, and I don't even know if she is guilty or not...

Do you really think that girl cut her friend's throat with a knife because she wouldn't have a threesome? Does that really sound like something a college chick would do?

Sorry about Versace.

 

[rhubroma]

Any country that integrates religion into its judicial philosophy is seriously messed up.

While your little redemption theme sounds noble in the way you presented it, why don't you let us know how a homosexual would feel being tried in Italy since the very same Catholic religion says gays should be killed.

Thanks.

Religion, per se, has got nothing to do with it, although, in the judicial room and outside it, a certain cultural background's impact upon how a society works and sees the world is unavoidable. This is why in the protestant world view punishment is usually exacted with greater alacrity than in in the Catholic Mediterranean in the court proceedings of Europe. And why indeed one usually doesn't go straight to prison in Italy for such things as tax evasion that in more rigorous countries one usually would.

Such nuances however I'm sure escape one such as you who thinks, sarcastically I suppose, that in Italy gays are lined up to be executed everyday, simply because the Catholic Church has had its historical base here.

Oh, and by the way, the very notion of the death penalty, which was abolished first in Italy (In the Republic of Tuscany, and not because of the Catholic Church, but due to a strong and enlightened mid-XIX century socialist movement, though which was filled with Catholics to be accurate) before anywhere else in the world, is considered by most Italians today to be thus utterly barbaric. That it continues without any resistance in the American judicial system seems to them to be directly against that Age of Reason upon which modern democracy was founded and the values of the State of human rights the US nation expects to be able to promote even through war around the world. It is also to them quite indicative of what an uncivilized and crude effect is borne upon a country's world view, when the severity of a protestant ethos predominates. Though, once again, in the cultural, but not strictly religious, sense. Get it?

In any case nobody in Italy believes the US judicial system, in part fot this reason, are anything to brag about, let alone take as exemplary in the civilized and democratic senses. The only thing they can admire is in its bringing major corporate business criminals to task of late al là Enron, but not how, for example, historically blacks have been treated, while the list of downright scandalous verdicts al là Sacco and Vanzetti to thy tyranny of McCarthyism, to the inanity of OJ makes the US media propaganda in the so called “Foxy Knoxy” case (which by the way was a British catch phrase, as I'm sure you would know, not Italian) to them at the very least intolerable. As if from which pulpit are they preaching?

While the idea that Amanda simply could not have done something so awful, as you reminded us, simply because she has that "angelic American sweet girl face" is merely laughable and utterly superficial as a valid rebuttal to the charges placed against her, and incredibly provincial in its ingenuousness.

 

[rhubroma]

USADA prosecutes everyone. Floyd Landis...Tyler Hamilton...next is Lance Armstrong.

CONI prosecutes DiLuca three times and after the third time still won't give the guy a 2 year ban! DiLuca should have been given a life suspension.

Garzelli is still racing. Pantani was NEVER prosecuted. Cipollini was never prosecuted. Bettini was never prosecuted. C'mon.

The only decent prosecutions by CONI were Rebellin, Pettachi, and Valverde (non-Guido).

Also, CONI almost never does unannounced doping tests like USADA does to its licensed athletes. That's the biggest scam in all countries outside of the United States - they rarely give unannounced tests.

USADA has the only website in the world to post the number of tests and athlete names tested on a public website. That's transparency! Name one other anti-doping agency that does that? ZERO. None. They're all frauds.

If all the other anti-doping agencies posted the number of athletes they tested every year and who was tested, you'd find that USADA tests many more athletes - by a factor of 10. But such a comparison is impossible because all the other agencies don't even disclose that information in order to keep their little corruption a secret.

You seem to be fooled by press releases from these agencies.

How was the testing system up and running for the first time at the Tour of California? Or what's going on with a junior development program that's sponsored by and named after a guy named Armstrong?

Like I said, hypocrisy comes in all forms.

 

[ElChingon]

I am not so sure. The Italian team selection has always been problematic and very political.

This is a good way of weeding out the field, and making it a lot easier to pick the team.

You lose Basso, Scarponi, Petacchi, Ballan, Sella, DDL, Garzelli etc

But you retain - Nibs, Cunego, Bennati, Ferrari, Guardini, Pozzato, Visconti, etc etc (ha ha)

I don't think that the Italian team loses too much by losing some of those riders. It makes it slightly easier as well to pick the team.

It is more of a symbolic issue and a way of putting blue water between those feds that are tough on doping and those that are not.

As of late the riders who were selected for the Squadra Azzuri were not necessarily the best but the riders that would work together instead of the old (well not that old) tactics of racing for themselves which was actually entertaining to watch as it was as if the Italian team was two or more teams in one. With this new rule I think they will have to ride with riders who don't necessarily like each other and they'll be back to the old multiple un-announced/un-identified leaders. Again, it does make for some great post race discussions .

If other countries do it, it might level the field but we still might end up with a Conti rider as world champ and we'll never see the jersey at a protour race, not that that is a bad thing.

 

[rhubroma]

If you guys don't want us dropping your cable cars to the valley floor with a wing slice, then don't let U.S. military operate flights in your country. So blame that one on whoever in Italy allowed U.S. Marines to operate in that region (from a NATO base). Notice how we don't let Italian planes fly here in the U.S..... that's why our cable cars stay attached to the cable.

Here you are being offensive to the memory of the Italians who lost loved ones, because a US top gun was drunk in the cockpit and recklessly sent a cable car several hundred feet to the ground killing all within just "having some kicks" while flying too low.

Your baseness here only demonstrates a total lack of dignity and decency on your part, though this doesn't surprise.

As far as "letting" the US military presence in the Boot goes, as you know these things are politically arranged, however, the mass protests at the US base at Vicenzo and against the nuclear subs at la Maddalena in Sardinia remind us that there is a popular disapproval. That the US air force arrogantly expected and, of course, was able to try its pilots in its own martial court, rather than, as would have been the righteous and normal thing to do in such a murderous case, especially in respect to the affected families, in the Italian system was a slap in the face to the dignity of an entire nation, which has not in that region since been forgotten.

 

[rhubroma]

Do you really think that girl cut her friend's throat with a knife because she wouldn't have a threesome? Does that really sound like something a college chick would do?

Sorry about Versace.

This question is so stupid and utterly ingenuous that it isn't worth a response, although in fact the court of Perugia said, yes, it's possible, which is all that matters here.

There are three levels of justice in Italy: primary, secondary (at the appeal level) and tertiary (casazione). If she is innocent, then I'll be the first to be pleased for her to be set free in the second or third phases. This is entirely possible and there are, even in Italy, questions and issues surrounding the initial verdict.

However, to be critical and derogatory of a system and a case for which you have obviously only based your judgment on an idiotic sentimentalism and quite misguided patriotism, while being influenced by the media propaganda, is merely pathetic. But coming from one such as yourself is, again, quite typical and thus little surprising.