Saturday, May 14, 2011

Witch hunt

The big news today was not that Alberto Contador gained time on a flat stage in the Giro. The Spaniard was unable to win the stage in any case. That honor went to Italian Oscar Gatto. It wasn't Romain Felliu's win in Picardie either. Or Julien Absalon's even more stunning win in Stoumont, where he beat Sven Nys by five minutes. The big news of the day were the further revelation of UCI's hot list of "suspected dopers." The publication of the list in L'équipe provoked outrage and a lawsuit in Switzerland. Paul De Geyter from Cello Sport & Image, who represents many riders announced these steps in a live broadcast on Friday.

The hot list assigned a score to suspected dopers in order to subject them to more rigorous scrutiny. One of its victims was Jurgen Van den Broeck. Even though Jurgen never tested positive the news has damaged his image. His score was 7.  Ironically enough, Alberto Contador who tested positive for Clenbuterol had a low score of "5," while many other high scoring riders never tested positive. These include fellow Spaniard Carlos Barredo and Yaroslav Popovych who topped the list with a score of 10.

Index of suspicion list

De Geyter says the publication of the list damages the image of the riders.

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