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Spanish "justice" with respect to Contador

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The Hitch said:
But he didnt. There were no races to race anyway. Like i said, hes getting punished for the fact that it took them a month to test the sample.

If he cant return till August 24th then its basically a 2 year ban not a 1 year one.

It doesn't matter, he could if he had wanted too. Well of course there will take some time to test the sample, it is the same thing every time. And if the UCI hadn't tried to sweep the whole thing under the carpet he had been notified earlier. The backside of being a protected rider, you know!

So, are you saying that he shuld get to compete in the Vuelta because otherwise it would basically be a two year ban and that would be wrong? You crack me up, are you sure you aren't "the hog" with a new nickname?
 
Except for article 315 i couldn't find any reasons why a ban should start from July whatever

Where there have been substantial delays in the hearing process or other aspects of Doping Control not attributable to the License-Holder, the hearing body imposing the sanction may start the period of Ineligibility at an earlier date commencing as early as the date of Sample collection or the date on which another anti-doping rule violation last occurred.
 
Walkman said:
It doesn't matter, he could if he had wanted too. Well of course there will take some time to test the sample, it is the same thing every time. And if the UCI hadn't tried to sweep the whole thing under the carpet he had been notified earlier. The backside of being a protected rider, you know!

So, are you saying that he shuld get to compete in the Vuelta because otherwise it would basically be a two year ban and that would be wrong? You crack me up, are you sure you aren't "the hog" with a new nickname?

Im saying its wrong to give him a in effect 2 year ban and say its a 1 year ban. He hasnt ridden since the Tour. His test came from the Tour. SO i think he should be punished from.... the Tour. Makes sence to me.

If they dont want him to ride till 2012 then dont call it a 1 year sentence.

And comparing me to the hog? I cant believe there are so many people out there for whom any slight disagreement immediately makes everything personal. A bit of advice for you. WHen your arguing little issues like sport, you gain nothing from getting personal. Its pointless.
 
Jul 16, 2010
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The Hitch said:
mmm good point, If he can get that ban turned back a few weeks maybe hell race Poland. Maybe that would be the first race back. :)

He won his first professional victory there anyway. Might as well win the whole thing if he gets unbaned in july.
 
Dec 1, 2010
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"Where there have been substantial (define substantial) delays in the hearing process or other aspects of Doping Control not attributable to the License-Holder, the hearing body imposing the sanction may (as in, "may choose to") start the period of Ineligibility at an earlier date commencing as early as the date of Sample collection or the date on which another anti-doping rule violation last occurred."

maybe that wording matters?
 
The Hitch said:
Im saying its wrong to give him a in effect 2 year ban and say its a 1 year ban. He hasnt ridden since the Tour. His test came from the Tour. SO i think he should be punished from.... the Tour. Makes sence to me.

Well i see it different and just beacuse he can't race a GT next year doesn't make it a two year ban, there are other races.

"in effect 2 year ban"

What does that even mean? That if you dope in the fall you should get shorter sentence sicne you can't race in the off-season? But if he had raced after the Tour bu before he got nofified, what would you say then? When should the ban start?

The Hitch said:
And comparing me to the hog? I cant believe there are so many people out there for whom any slight disagreement immediately makes everything personal. A bit of advice for you. WHen your arguing little issues like sport, you gain nothing from getting personal. Its pointless.

Well, it was my intention that the "hog-thing" would be more of a bad joke. I am sorry if you felt like it was a personal attack, that was never my intension even if I strongly disagree with what you say. But you are right about one thing, personal attacks doesn't belong here. My apologies.
 
luckyboy said:
Was August 24th when they announced it? Or when they tested it, and announced in September.. Just asking because I can't remember.

I don't actually know. The recent press reports said August 24th, and I remember at the end of September when it was announced they said it was discovered 'about a month ago', so I'd say that's pretty accurate.
 
The Hitch said:
If the ban starts from when the positive was found then they are basically punishing Contador for the fact that it took them a month to test the sample.

But that's how every dope case works. By the logic of your argument, Thomas Dekker should have only been suspended from July 2009 until Christmas 2009, because they found his late 07 sample to be positive in summer 09. Or Valverde, if they matched his blood from Fuentes' lab from June 2006 with a sample from July 2008, should have been suspended for 2 years from June 2006 and had his ban be over before he was even caught.

Otherwise they are just punishing those riders for the fact that it took them awhile to find evidence of their doping as well. Which, in my opinion, is how it should work (although I sure would love to see Valverde racing...)
 
skidmark said:
But that's how every dope case works. By the logic of your argument, Thomas Dekker should have only been suspended from July 2009 until Christmas 2009, because they found his late 07 sample to be positive in summer 09. Or Valverde, if they matched his blood from Fuentes' lab from June 2006 with a sample from July 2008, should have been suspended for 2 years from June 2006 and had his ban be over before he was even caught.

Otherwise they are just punishing those riders for the fact that it took them awhile to find evidence of their doping as well. Which, in my opinion, is how it should work (although I sure would love to see Valverde racing...)

I think it should be backdated to the last race you rode. So if fail a test from 2008 and have ridden 2 seasons since, backdate the start to the last date you rode on.
 
Oct 25, 2009
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The Hitch said:
I think it should be backdated to the last race you rode. So if fail a test from 2008 and have ridden 2 seasons since, backdate the start to the last date you rode on.

2 years is 2 years not 2 years less the number of days raced in a particular race before the relevant sample proved positive.

Thus, if Contador gets 2 years, he should not be able to race the 2012 TdF even if the ban starts on the day the sample was taken (as opposed to the date it proved positive and/or the rider was "suspended").

If, for argument's sake, you only raced 1 race a year and got caught during that race and were rubbed out for 2 years on your logic you would only miss that race once i.e. in effect a 1 year ban. The fact that you may lose results from the race does not justify back dating any ban to the start - for a start in theory you should be able to insist legally on receiving any stage or intermediate prizes which could not be proved to have been assisted by the later proved doping.

Edit: Just realised I confused The Hitch's above quoted post (which is not inconsistent with what I have said) with his earlier one:-

"If they increase the ban it would probably be to 2 years. Then they have to decide if he keeps his 2010 Tour, or they want to start the ban at the 2010 Tour, taking that away from him allowing him to return for 2012 version."

which was made in a different context i.e. they start the ban from the date of the positive (say 24 August) yet he is stripped of results from the Tour over and above that. I now understand the sense in then backdating the ban to the date of the taking of the sample although I would tend to agree with those who think loss of results is a separate issue because of the opportunity to race in the meantime. Sorry for the confusion.
 
May 8, 2009
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The title of this thread is misleading. I thought the Spanish Justice did/said something about the Contador case. A fast look at some posts makes me believe that this is just about the Spanish Cycling Federation telling UCI (eventually CAS) "it is your turn to solve this mess".

What a small sporting federation does is considered Spanish "justice". :rolleyes:
 
The Hitch said:
I think it should be backdated to the last race you rode. So if fail a test from 2008 and have ridden 2 seasons since, backdate the start to the last date you rode on.

Right, that has a certain basic sense to it. In Valverde's case especially this would make sense, keep your results through Romandie but don't ride until May 2012, instead of revising 2010 history from January-May and having him come back in January 2012. In alot of ways this would be simpler. Regardless, as someone mentioned above, with Contador even if you take it from the 2nd rest day of the TdF 2010 and end the ban on July 20th 2012, he still loses the tour 2010, and misses 2011 and 2012. So it wouldn't be much different than what we got, a '3 year' ban from the Tour. In his case it doesn't make a difference. The doping rules are arbitrary in the sense that they take it from the day of the positive, so you get weird stuff like Petacchi having his Giro 2007 results nullified but getting to keep Paris-Tours later in the season (before he was definitely banned). Or Basso being suspended for most of 2006, and then riding briefly in 2007 before being suspended for pretty much 2 years more, and not coming back until 2009.

But you have to at least concede the point that riders need to be stripped of the results from the race they test positive in, right? And then a 2 year ban would mean that essentially they are banned from that particular race for 3 years.
 
skidmark said:
But you have to at least concede the point that riders need to be stripped of the results from the race they test positive in, right? And then a 2 year ban would mean that essentially they are banned from that particular race for 3 years.

If you mean they lose the chance of getting results in that race for three years, including the year they tested positive, yes.

I agree with Hitch, though I think the testing agency needs to get these results out quickly. If Bert had appeared in some relatively minor race following the Tour (and didn't he? wasn't he in some of the usual post-Tour crits?), that could have the effect of extending his ban, so that he couldn't race the Vuelta in the year his ban ended. Floyd got his stage 17 results back within 2-3 days following the end of the Tour, IIRC. In fact, he bowed out of a post-Tour crit, and it was that which tipped some people off to the fact that he might be positive, before the rumor was confirmed.

Except for these post-Tour crits, I believe that following a seriously contended GT, riders usually don't race again for a couple of weeks, at least. The labs should be able to get results out in this period. Bert's positive was on or right after the second rest day, which I think was about a week before the end of the Tour.

If they can't do that, how about starting the suspension at the time the sample was withdrawn, regardless? Suppose Bert rode in some race after the Tour in the middle of August, before he was notified of the positive A sample. So what? He's going to lose any results of that race, anyway. He can make the reasonable argument that he had no way of knowing when he entered that race that he was going to test positive for the Tour. I don't see the big deal if the effective ban between races is a little less than one year, or two years, or whatever the suspension is. The point is, in either case, he will be barred from getting results for that length of time. What does it matter if he rode in a race during that time, if his results are nullified?
 
Merckx index said:
If you mean they lose the chance of getting results in that race for three years, including the year they tested positive, yes.

If they can't do that, how about starting the suspension at the time the sample was withdrawn, regardless? Suppose Bert rode in some race after the Tour in the middle of August, before he was notified of the positive A sample. So what? He's going to lose any results of that race, anyway. He can make the reasonable argument that he had no way of knowing when he entered that race that he was going to test positive for the Tour. I don't see the big deal if the effective ban between races is a little less than one year, or two years, or whatever the suspension is. The point is, in either case, he will be barred from getting results for that length of time. What does it matter if he rode in a race during that time, if his results are nullified?

I agree with that for sure. I was just responding to Hitch's assessment that it was somehow 'unfair' to strip Contador of his Tour title AND make him miss the next two, which is a '3 year ban' for one race and a 2 year real-time ban. I don't think it's unfair.

With regards to suspending riders from their last race, it makes sense. And it's often what happens. Rebellin for example, again. He got to keep his results right up to late April 2009, until they found CERA in his Olympic sample. Then, he was stripped of the Olympic medal, got to keep his results between then and April 2009, and was suspended from then - right after his last race. Same with Dekker. Usually as soon as a positive comes out, the guy is provisionally suspended, making the ban effectively from the last race he raced. Valverde was a unique case in that he got to keep racing, but usually it's the other way around.

In the Contador example you give, it's pretty much the same anyway. His results after the Tour weren't 'nullified', if he had won San Sebastien he would have been able to keep it. But if he didn't ride at all and was suspended in August, it shouldn't be a big deal to ban him from then because why would he race in August the next year? The only reason it's a big deal here is that the Vuelta is starting ten days earlier next year so if he gets a 1-year and gets back on, he'll have to miss it too. Generally though, I see it as 6 of one, half dozen of the other. All other things being equal, I like the consistency of 'suspension from the time of the positive' rather than rearranging on a case-by-case basis for a rider's last race. That avoids a weird situation like if a rider tests positive in a race, gets hurt after the race and is out for 6 months, and then the positive result only comes down 5 months later. That's not really a punishment if the rider was going to miss that time anyway.
 

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