Team of Second Chancers

[GatorGene]

If the Chicken and Christina Hembo are serious about their new motto of "everyone deserves a second chance", and they are willing to hire everyone who has served a doping suspension, how many excellent riders could they get nearly immediately, how many in the next year, and how fast could they become a quality team?

Ricco? Pellizotti? Frei? Basso? Landis?

Who else is soon to come off a suspension? Who else is already off, and not getting the 'love' (attention, Euros, etc.) from a high level team?

Could they realistically build a 'super team' of riders by giving second chances? If so, would it be hated and labeled as dopers, or would it be respected and admired as having learned their lessons a la Millar?

 

[flicker]

I hear the Rock Racing and Bahati riders are looking for a team, also Floyd and Tyler H. are looking for rides... Rock Racing 2.0 the return of the fuelers...

 

[Ferminal]

Good team for Bottle in 2012.

 

[theswordsman]

Frei is banned, Basso would be silly to leave Liquigas, Pellizotti is waiting for the UCI to give up thoughts of an appeal so he can get a better contract, Ricco is on a Pro Team.

Due to mostly financial and sponsorship reasons, a bunch of guys do seem to be looking for a paycheck for next year. I wouldn't think the team would be ex-dopers, but they should be able to field a squad of guys who missed out via merger or whatever.

Some people, like the one French official dude, already don't have a kind view of Vacansoleil. I doubt a team would be able to push the envelope much more than that and not incur the wrath of some organization.

 

[ingsve]

Riders that are currently on a "blacklist" if such a thing exists are Mancebo, Sevilla and Schumacher. They are all confined to continental teams and no higher up teams seem to want to touch them. I'm sure there are others as well.

 

[Publicus]

Rock Racing Part Deux.

 

[Kerbdog]

This is interesting no doubt. There has to be a lot of riders they could attract through the "second chance" ideology. Im already thinking about Landis here but i suppose politics would quench that. Would he be allowed anywhere near a decent race at present?
As far as Rasmussen goes i think good luck to him. He took a fair beating from the ****ty stick as regards those who get another chance. If even just to see him be able to smile at Rolf Aldag when he rubbished this team last week. Im not giving Rasmussen a pass for what happened before but for Aldag to turn his nose up at the effort wasnt too classy. Aldag who admitted his own past indiscretions & now makes a decent living in the background to one of the sports top teams at present.

 

[Vonn Brinkman]

I think the idea of "Proteam by 2016" is the funniest and saddest thing ever. No way that the Chicken and his new disciple Christina will come that far.
Have to love the idealism, nonetheless.

 

[BotanyBay]

I'm sure that ASO would LOVE to see such a team created. That way they could quickly exclude every doper without also having to deal with the mess of also excluding the perfectly innocent.

 

[Altitude]

Landis? Seriously?

 

[BotanyBay]

Landis? Seriously?

Landis can't even place in SoCal crits anymore now that he's lost his dope supply. And we're supposed to believe that he'd never even touched the stuff until he was already ON the postal team? Yeah right.

Four simple words come to mind: John Wordin of Mercury

 

[Altitude]

Landis can't even place in SoCal crits anymore now that he's lost his dope supply. And we're supposed to believe that he'd never even touched the stuff until he was already ON the postal team? Yeah right.

Four simple words come to mind: John Wordin of Mercury

Not only that, but I don't think this team would want someone who has pi$$ed in the soup multiple times.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Héctor Guerra and Nuno Ribeiro will be coming off suspension in August. Most of the old LA-MSS crowd who were suspended will be available. After this year, there's Eladio Jiménez. Antonio Colom will be back soon, I think - he'd be a good addition.

 

[Magnus]

I think the idea of "Proteam by 2016" is the funniest and saddest thing ever. No way that the Chicken and his new disciple Christina will come that far.

Why not?
A 5-6 year frame seems like a realistic time frame to build a pro team from scratch?

 

[JPM London]

I think the UCI testers would like this - makes live a lot easier for them when all the dope heads are on the same team...

 

[thingswelike]

I like this idea, but it would only work if they took extra steps to prove they were clean. Even more than Garmin/Cervelo/Columbia/etc
i.e. exactly unlike Rock Racing

 

[rzombie1988]

I thought of this too before. It would be an interesting idea. But, alot of the ex-dopers haven't had good results once they return.

Forgive me if what I am about to say is stupid, but I really do not think it is as easy to win non-protour races on B/C/D/E/F level teams. I think even the best might have trouble doing great in the lower races as there is a ton of talent out there. I think those races get discredited too much. People like Basso got lucky as they were able to get on protour teams, as if they had to work their way back up, I think it would be alot harder for them.

Is Schumacher blacklisted? Anytime I try to find something on him it's in German.