Today's la Gazzetta dello Sport's article I translate in full:
Medics and Trainers: A Clan in the Storm
Michele Ferrari: 59 year-old Ferrara medic, since 1995 at Armstrong's side
Luis Garcia Del Moral: 55 year-old Spanish medic of US Postal from 99-2003
Pedro Celaya: 56 year-old Spanish medic, allready with Lance at Motorola in 92
José Pepe Martì: 42 year-old Spanish trainer from Valencia at US Postal in 1999
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(Beside) a page of the letter in which the USADA, the American anti-doping agency, accuses the Armstrong system from 1998 to the present.
Johan Bruyneel: historic team manager of Armstrong
Pedro Celaya: medic of US Postal, Discovery Channel and Radio Shack
Luis del Moral: medic and trainer of US Postal
Michele Ferrari: medic and consultant of Armstrong
José Pepe Martì: trainer at US Postal between 1997-2007, and then Astana
are accused of:
-possession of prohibited doping substances/methods, such as EPO and blood transfusions;
-EPO trafficking;
-administration of EPO, transfusions and masking agents;
-assistance and encouragement of doping.
Armstrong: use of prohibited substances
Doping File: From Ferrari's Oil to Lance's Blood
Armstrong in the 15 pages of accusations and tricks to evade the tests. New list with Hincapie and Leipheimer?
by Luca Gialanela
There are no names of witnesses to protect them, nor places; merely a most ascetic, though terrible, list of accusations to deconstruct the system constructed by Lance Armstrong to cancel an era of cycling. Team doping from US Postal and beyond, from 1998 to the present: well then, here is the full scope of which the USADA wants to demonstrate, in a 15 page letter with which it has placed under investigation for doping the Texan, icon of the fight against cancer and inserted in Time Magazine's 2008 list of the top 100 most influential people on the planet. It's called "Conspiracy USPS": managers, athletes, medics.
The strategy of the document is clear: don't put all the cards on the table, don't furnish all the details of the investigation born during the penal one (subsequently archived) and taken flight in the spring following new information revealed about Ferrara by the Padova procura.
And is this precisely the point: the majority of the witnesses regarding the presumed doping practices during the years of US Postal (1996-2004), Discovery Channel (2005-2007), Astana (2009) and RadioShack (2010) were already well known by the spring of 2010, when Landis emptied the UCI's sack. Subsequently another ex-Postal rider, Tyler Hamilton, also talked. The USADA met with over 10 people between racers and members of various teams, to collect their statements about how doping was distributed and encouraged; but also masking techniques to evade the controls.
Some examples? For the USADA, Bruyneel, the trainer Pepe Martì and the medic Michele Ferrara had elaborated training programs based upon EPO and blood transfusoins between 1998 and 2007, as well as instructed racers how to dope themselves. The injections were also administered by medics Garcia del Moral and Celaya. The same Armstrong, between 1998-2005, distributed EPO and was between 2000-2005 seen to have, even during the Tour, injected himself with blood. Doctor Ferrara, it is noted in the document, "between 1998-2007 developed a method of mixing testosterone with olive oil to be administered orally" and, in this way, to have it not revealed in the tests. There are also pages on testosterone, saline solutions to lower hematocrit levels and deceive the controls, growth hormone.
Then there is the part about Armstrong’s blood values samples in 2009 and 2010, which for the USADA are "perfectly compatible with manipulated blood." With which certainty? It's not know that the UCI has ceded Armstrong's samples taken following his comeback (in 2009) to reanalyze them with new methods. It's more probable that the USADA had collected the Texan's samples (which it has the right to do on an American athlete, as does CONI in Italy) and compared those values to the history of his Biopassport. The agency's consultants would have consented to a doping hearing, as in other cases: Pellizotti, for example.
Also, in light of this development, other racers risk hugely: such as Levi Leipheimer and George Hincapie, who raced in the same team as Armstrong and are still active. According to a source there is about to be released a communication by USADA that regards them: in doubt, therefore, is placed their participation at the Tour de France and the London Olympics.
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