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Valverde case delayed AGAIN!

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You ignored the other side of the coin. All the dopers involved with OP that were never investigated or pursued at all.

Understand your frustration though. As I said many times now, Valverde should have been suspended well over 3 years ago now. Since OP broke and Valv-Piti was named, Flandis "won" the Tour, peed hot, was suspended by USADA, stripped of his win, went through CAS, lost that, and served a full suspension. PLUS he's now been back racing for a full year.

Not to defend Floyd, he f'd up for sure, but it just goes to show you how long this whole damned thing has dragged out, and how askew justice has been with it.

:mad:
 
Mar 18, 2009
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dimspace said:
1/there is evidence.. they got a bag of blood with his DNA on it for a start...

No arguments that they have his DNA connected to a bag of blood (which also apparently contains EPO). But this is also a legal quagmire in which the Italian authorities (CONI) are trying to sanction a non-Italian athlete based on blood that was possibly illegally obtained from a Spanish athlete and despite the fact that the Spanish judiciary ruled that the blood could be used for further cases.

dimspace said:
2/neither have contador, lance, and a bunch of other people.. think they are clean

So Valverde should be sanctioned while Lance, Contador, etc are still allowed to ride? That's not a valid argument.

dimspace said:
3/Several of the OP riders have been done, valverde continues to escape

You've said this before, but only three riders (Scarponi, Basso and Jaschke), not several, have been sanctioned because of their involvement in Operation Puerto and these were all because they admitted to their guilt, not because they were found guilty because of an investigation.

So only three riders out of 57 implicated riders have been sanctioned, and only because they admitted their own guilt. While Valverde no doubt doped, what about the other 53 as guilty professional cyclists? Most continue to ride in some capacity, other than Ullrich, and none other than Valverde have an ongoing investigation against them. Is this fair? IMO, this is less fair than comparing Valverde to three cyclists who for whatever reason admitted their guilt.

dimspace said:
4/Oh so because he doped, but is probably ok now he should be allowed to get away with it..?

Again, IMO, there should be investigations against everyone or no one. Yes, Valverde doped and he may get away with it. But the other 53 cyclists that were implicated are also just as certain to have doped and they're definitely not going to be sanctioned. CONI, UCI and WADA should either open the case wide open and investigate everyone, or just drop the whole thing and say lesson learned on how to f-up an investigation. Picking one rider out of 57 implicated cyclists stinks IMO.

dimspace said:
5/Good image.. the guy has done more to damage the reputation of cycling this year that any other...

Armstrong?
 
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Anonymous

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elapid said:
dimspace said:
5/Good image.. the guy has done more to damage the reputation of cycling this year that any other...
Armstrong?

this year no.. i think valverde has..

the italian ban, the fiasco over will he wont he be able to ride the tour, the court case, and then to top it all winning a vuelta (assisted by spanish authorities, some of the fines and penalties where laughable)

no, i think valverdes cheating outshines lances bickering by a mile..

elapid said:
So only three riders out of 57 implicated riders have been sanctioned, and only because they admitted their own guilt. While Valverde no doubt doped, what about the other 53 as guilty professional cyclists? Most continue to ride in some capacity, other than Ullrich, and none other than Valverde have an ongoing investigation against them. Is this fair? IMO, this is less fair than comparing Valverde to three cyclists who for whatever reason admitted their guilt.

to be fair, this is only because nobody apart from the italians seems to have the balls to try and do anything about it. even if it is purely for political reasons..
 
Just a clarification: probably half of the riders on the OP list are now retired or out of the sport. But yes, Elapid, I agree with you. As I said many times now, this whole thing has been anything but "justice".

Personally I think the Spanish authorities should consider calling it all a wash and done with, never to be prosecuted. Then release every last document, including DNA info, to the media jackals and let them have at it.

We're not ever going to sanction any of the riders left out there, sans maybe Valverde, and the only way this can likely be a benefit to the sport as a whole is if more information on doping inner workings are revealed to everyone wishing to combat doping. An ancillary benefit is that riders assumed to be part of OP could be verified, and pressured to respond to the press and fans as to why their names/DNA was part of OP.
 
Alpe d'Huez said:
You ignored the other side of the coin. All the dopers involved with OP that were never investigated or pursued at all.

Understand your frustration though. As I said many times now, Valverde should have been suspended well over 3 years ago now. Since OP broke and Valv-Piti was named, Flandis "won" the Tour, peed hot, was suspended by USADA, stripped of his win, went through CAS, lost that, and served a full suspension. PLUS he's now been back racing for a full year.

Not to defend Floyd, he f'd up for sure, but it just goes to show you how long this whole damned thing has dragged out, and how askew justice has been with it.

:mad:

Actually, I not so much ignored as I cracked and had a major rant! The whole OP thing has sent me over the edge a bit, especially with its focus on cycling (ummm, soccer anyone?) That combined with the fact that there seems to be hard evidence against Valve-Piti, and boom! I think it just gets to me when there is overwhelming evidence against someone and nothing seems to stick (remind you of another cyclist who came back to racing this year?)

Oh well. C'est la vie :eek:
 
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Im sure this is a real disappointment to the original investigators of the case. 3 suspensions consisting of 2 Germans and an Italian, without a spanish in sight. No wonder Coni were out for blood.

A real indictment on the Spanish system. Protectionism, judical subterfuge, call it what you will.
 
Oct 31, 2009
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Anyone know what's really going on?

It is easy to scream 'conspiracy' but there might be some real legal issues with those samples. It seems like a pretty big thing to try to sweep under the carpet.
 
Dates are set for now, we'll see if they actually last. If the CAS rules in his favor in January, will that nullify the March hearing? How can WADA go after Valverde if the CAS already ruled that CONI had no authority to sanction him?

You can tell its the offseason and there really isn't anything else to talk about.
 
Mar 13, 2009
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Finally some good news. Valverde's planning to start the tour down under. Im getting my 'Dirty Dog' banner and 10 cartons of eggs ready in anticipation.
 
issoisso said:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/viru-investigation-turns-up-kelme-documents

So, how are the spanish going to get Valverde out of yet more bulletproof evidence of doping?

Depends on what information is in the documents. If it is simply plans, there is no proof that the plans were implemented. If it contains dosages given, etc., well that's a much tougher argument to make. Much tougher.

It feels like it is only a matter of time before Valverde is out of competition for two years.
 
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Active riders who were on Kelme in 2003 and 2004:

Valverde
Sevilla (Rock Racing)
Ruben Plaza (Liberty Seguros [Portugal])
Constantino Zaballa (on some small Portuguese team I know nothing about)
 
Beech Mtn said:
Active riders who were on Kelme in 2003 and 2004:

Valverde
Sevilla (Rock Racing)
Ruben Plaza (Liberty Seguros [Portugal])
Constantino Zaballa (on some small Portuguese team I know nothing about)

Didn't Plaza just sign with Caisse? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Caisse will have at least two riders popped for doping in 2010. Possibly 3.
 
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Publicus said:
Didn't Plaza just sign with Caisse? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Caisse will have at least two riders popped for doping in 2010. Possibly 3.

It's been 3 years since they've had a positive. They're tough to catch. And Plaza has been with Caisse twice before and never been caught.


Beech Mtn said:
Active riders who were on Kelme in 2003 and 2004:

Valverde
Sevilla (Rock Racing)
Ruben Plaza (Liberty Seguros [Portugal])
Constantino Zaballa (on some small Portuguese team I know nothing about)


Zaballa is mostly riding cyclo-cross with a spanish cross team.

Also, Blanco, Bonilla, Toni Olmo, Parra, "Bufalo" Gutierrez and Tauler are all still riding as well
 
Beech Mtn said:
Active riders who were on Kelme in 2003 and 2004:

Valverde
Sevilla (Rock Racing)
Ruben Plaza (Liberty Seguros [Portugal])
Constantino Zaballa (on some small Portuguese team I know nothing about)
Thanks for the Info.

The more this story continues the worse it would get for Valverde. Just for how long do spanish authorities can or will continue to hide the cheating of his cycling idol?
 
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Escarabajo said:
Thanks for the Info.

The more this story continues the worse it would get for Valverde. Just for how long do spanish authorities can or will continue to hide the cheating of his cycling idol?

Same as when Pedro Delgado tested positive while leading the Tour: as long as humanly possible.
 
DavidVilla7 said:
And there are more names linked to OP, why is valverde the only one?

+ this case is kinda old, so even if he used dope in the past, he's likely not using it anymore.

And in my eyes he has a good image. :cool: ( ok, you know what I mean)

Valverde was the highest profile Spaniard that the Italians could catch to make up for Basso getting suspended. The way they went about it was technically underhanded since they used the blood in a manner contrary to what it was drawn for. As someone stated, he still has never tested positive so to potentially invalidate any of his results in 2009 is senseless. If they were even considering doing this they should have banned him from racing completely. To do this has a negative impact on all the events that they allowed him to compete all while knowing that his results could potentially be disallowed in the future (unjustifiably IMO). I believe he's been clean for the past 2 years and he still is getting results. I'm admittedly quite biased so my opinion is quite tainted. (Could you tell?:D)
 
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Anonymous

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it really is time for this guy to go.. everyone says lance is the biggest embarassment in cycling, epo positives from 1999, but christ almighty, there are more fingers pointing at piti than would point at george bush if there was a spot the idiot contest.
 
BroDeal said:
He had gout??

He tested positive for a steroid masking drug that was not yet on the UCI prohibited list.

It was on the Olympic committee's list of banned substances but not the UCI's at the time so he was allowed to continue because of that fact. As far as I know that was the only time he tested positive. His record in the grand tours is quite impressive nonetheless making him one of the most complete grand tour riders in the history of the sport. I believe he had over 15 top 10 grand tour finishes.
 
Well, I don't know what is going to save Valverde this time, because Manzano is going to testify against him next week during the CAS hearing. Manzano is the rider who helped uncover all the rampant doping in procycling and his confessions led to the so famous Operacion Puerto.

His testimony is going to put the nail on the coffin on the Valverde global ban.

Here is the link to the Cyclingnews link:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/manzano-called-to-testify-at-valverde-cas-hearing