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powderpuff said:
I think it can be good prep for the giro (providing the season hasn't been to full on so far) and a good way to tweak your form. As long as they go all out.
Things going wrong is a risk cyclists take.
- Mar 19, 2009
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Not looking good for Basso's Giro hopes - outclimbed by Sagan.
Nice to see Valverde attack on the climb for the win. He could have just waited for the sprint as he was definitely the fastest of the group that was going to be there - between the bonus sprint and the finish, he already had it in the bag.
Nice to see Valverde attack on the climb for the win. He could have just waited for the sprint as he was definitely the fastest of the group that was going to be there - between the bonus sprint and the finish, he already had it in the bag.
Such a PITTI
Such a shame to see Valv Pitti winning again. His presence in the peloton makes a mockery of the sport. It is quite clear he is guilty of involvement with Fuentes and his hiding behind the Spanish legal system has allowed him to race long after he should have been punished. Sadly if you look at recent winners of Romandie it is just about a cheats paradise. Dufaux, Frigo (twice) Hamilton (twice), Botero, Thomas Dekker and now Valv Pitti. That leaves us about four credible winner of the race in the last 13 years (Jalabert, Savoldelli, Evans and Kreuziger - yes I have deliberately left out Kloeden).
Whilst people are complaining that Vino's win in Liege is bad for the sport, at least Vino served his punishment. For sure Valverde is one of the classiest riders in the peloton and maybe he is riding clean now, but the fact remains he has escaped punishment when a number of his peers didn't. Hopefully they will extend the ban world wide, but I don't suppose they will be able to annul all his wins since the date when he should have been sanctioned in the first place. I would love to see him stripped of his classics and Vuelta but I suppose it won't happen. And to those who say he has never tested positive: neither did Basso, but he did at least come clean about his involvement with Fuentes. Now if I was in Valv Pitti's position with all this doubt about me and I knew I was innocent, I think I would have cleared it up very soon and very easily by a DNA test against the blood in the puerto case. Ask yourself why he hasn't done it. After all in legal terms a DNA test is used to demonstrate innocence: if it isn't your DNA you can prove it. The first way of ruling out suspects in rape case etc is through DNA testing; if the sample doesn't match, it wasn't yours, end of story.
Such a shame to see Valv Pitti winning again. His presence in the peloton makes a mockery of the sport. It is quite clear he is guilty of involvement with Fuentes and his hiding behind the Spanish legal system has allowed him to race long after he should have been punished. Sadly if you look at recent winners of Romandie it is just about a cheats paradise. Dufaux, Frigo (twice) Hamilton (twice), Botero, Thomas Dekker and now Valv Pitti. That leaves us about four credible winner of the race in the last 13 years (Jalabert, Savoldelli, Evans and Kreuziger - yes I have deliberately left out Kloeden).
Whilst people are complaining that Vino's win in Liege is bad for the sport, at least Vino served his punishment. For sure Valverde is one of the classiest riders in the peloton and maybe he is riding clean now, but the fact remains he has escaped punishment when a number of his peers didn't. Hopefully they will extend the ban world wide, but I don't suppose they will be able to annul all his wins since the date when he should have been sanctioned in the first place. I would love to see him stripped of his classics and Vuelta but I suppose it won't happen. And to those who say he has never tested positive: neither did Basso, but he did at least come clean about his involvement with Fuentes. Now if I was in Valv Pitti's position with all this doubt about me and I knew I was innocent, I think I would have cleared it up very soon and very easily by a DNA test against the blood in the puerto case. Ask yourself why he hasn't done it. After all in legal terms a DNA test is used to demonstrate innocence: if it isn't your DNA you can prove it. The first way of ruling out suspects in rape case etc is through DNA testing; if the sample doesn't match, it wasn't yours, end of story.
Barrus
BANNED
- Apr 28, 2010
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Look Wattie I can go into full extent what I think about Valverde's banning and the subsequent legal proceedings but I don't really want to. The gist of it is that Valverde in my mind should never have been banned on this evidence, especially due to the manner in which it was obtained. For the sport it would have been better if he was banned, but from a legal perspective, I had hoped that his appeal would have been successful.
And almost every race in cycling can be seen as a cheater's paradise, hell look at Amstel Gold Race from a few years back, everybody in the top 5 had either been banned later or is banned at this moment.
But coming back to the race. It is a shame Valverde can't ride the Giro he is in great shape and is one of the best riders at the moment.
A lot of hopefuls for the Giro do look a bit pale at this, I wonder whether they can improve or not in the coming week, otherwise I think Evans or Pelizotti will have the best chances for a win
And almost every race in cycling can be seen as a cheater's paradise, hell look at Amstel Gold Race from a few years back, everybody in the top 5 had either been banned later or is banned at this moment.
But coming back to the race. It is a shame Valverde can't ride the Giro he is in great shape and is one of the best riders at the moment.
A lot of hopefuls for the Giro do look a bit pale at this, I wonder whether they can improve or not in the coming week, otherwise I think Evans or Pelizotti will have the best chances for a win
On what evidence would you ban him then?
He has basically hidden behind an absurd lack of cooperation from the Spanish legal system. Bear in mind that a number of experts on Spanish law declared that the judge's decision to close the case was incorrect and that the Spanish federation is notoriously weak when it comes to sanctioning dopers - maybe one day we will know just why the decision was made. It is quite clear that the blood was his: that has been demonstrated by the Italian authorities. The law (Spanish law) in this case has palpably been used to protect the guilty. Valv Pitti must be laughing his head off at all the other poor schmucks who got caught out and had their careers damaged or ruined by Operation Puerto. I wonder how Basso feels when he lines up alongside Valv Pitti knowing that Puerto cost him two years (probably the best two) of his career, yet the Spaniard has sailed though it unscathed. Since CAS has upheld the Italian ban there seems absolutely no logic in it not being extended worldwide; it won't put right all the wins he was able to garner (not to mention the wealth) during the time he should have been suspended, but it will belatedly restore a bit more credibility to the sport; a credibility which the continued participation of Valverde has done much to undermine.
He has basically hidden behind an absurd lack of cooperation from the Spanish legal system. Bear in mind that a number of experts on Spanish law declared that the judge's decision to close the case was incorrect and that the Spanish federation is notoriously weak when it comes to sanctioning dopers - maybe one day we will know just why the decision was made. It is quite clear that the blood was his: that has been demonstrated by the Italian authorities. The law (Spanish law) in this case has palpably been used to protect the guilty. Valv Pitti must be laughing his head off at all the other poor schmucks who got caught out and had their careers damaged or ruined by Operation Puerto. I wonder how Basso feels when he lines up alongside Valv Pitti knowing that Puerto cost him two years (probably the best two) of his career, yet the Spaniard has sailed though it unscathed. Since CAS has upheld the Italian ban there seems absolutely no logic in it not being extended worldwide; it won't put right all the wins he was able to garner (not to mention the wealth) during the time he should have been suspended, but it will belatedly restore a bit more credibility to the sport; a credibility which the continued participation of Valverde has done much to undermine.
Barrus said:
Kind of agree with you on that one. Another good example is the Tour that Riis won: no point in stripping him of the title because just about everyone in the places below him was implicated in cheating too.
But that bears out my point: for the good of the sport (and because the guilty shouldn't get away with things) we want a winner about whom there are the fewest possible question marks. Of course mud can be slung arbitrarily at anyone and sometimes it is nothing more than gossip or innuendo, but in the case of Valverde it is far more than that.
The legal question is an interesting one though: do the civil laws apply to sport in their entirety? If they do, then why are footballers not routinely prosecuted for fraud when they secure a lucrative victory by diving to get a penalty? Certain legal matters take precedence over the rules of a game (you cannot murder someone in sport and get away with it), but some of the rules of the game in a sense supersede the civil laws since they are rules that are specific to the sport itself and are not in fact legal strictures outside of it. To what extent are the Italian authorities breaking the rules of sport and to what extend did their obtaining of the blood from Puerto violate civil law: do the two rules/laws have equal weight in what is purely an internal issue within the sport?
- Mar 19, 2009
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There is a thread going on right now for this stuff, guys:
http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread.php?t=7002
Let's keep this thread about the actual race
http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread.php?t=7002
Let's keep this thread about the actual race
Can I just say congratulations to Simon Spilak for winning the Tour of Romandie. He will be announded the winner in a few weeks when the UCI pull their finger out and ban that little *** ValvPiti.
luckyboy said:
Well, if there going to ban him from now going forward for two years I don't see the legal basis for past results getting scapped unless positive tests were taken there.
If they say "we'll apply the CONI ban worldwide" they could make the argument that he shouldn't have been riding since May 10th last year (something around then as I recall). In this case they might be able to scrap past results, but obviously the ban will only be until 2010. And Valv-Piti willl almost certainly contest the results scrapping in court.
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