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Astana: Cheats, or Cheated?

By Jessica | Permalink | No Comments | July 27th, 2006 | Trackback

As a friend of mine said today, I’m not sure which is worse - doping in cycling, or a witch hunt.

After being excluded from this year’s Tour de France because they couldn’t field a full team (since many of their riders were named in the Operacion Puerto scandal), the Astana team members who were wrapped up in the Spanish doping investigation have been formally cleared by Spanish courts. The five riders, Joseba Beloki, Isidro Nozal, Sergio Paulinho, Allan Davis and Alberto Contador, “have all received a written document officially clearing them of any links to the ongoing Operación Puerto, the Spanish newspaper El Diario Vasco reported Wednesday.”

This means that they, along with their un-tarnished teammates, should have been allowed to ride the Tour. But because of a pendulum which has, to some degree, swung too far, they were not. In fact, they are still not being allowed to race, as the UCI says they’re reviewing the team’s license - this despite the riders’ receipt of “a legal document signed by Manuel Sánchez Martín, secretary for the Spanish court heading up the Operación Puerto investigation, stating, ‘there are not any type of charges against them nor have there been adopted any type of legal action against them.’” In addition, “The UCI is currently sending the files of riders involved in the Puerto affair to their respective national federations, and ‘has asked for disciplinary proceedings to be started in accordance with the rules.’”

Isn’t there a point at which this has gone too far?

Don’t get me wrong - I don’t want a doper, a guy who’s guilty of cheating, to win races and slip through the cracks. But I also don’t want the sieve to be so fine as to catch innocent riders and label them as cheats for life. These guys have a very short time span, career-wise, to be at their peak. Accusations and endless appeals are a de facto suspension - and if the guy ends up being found not guilty, he’s still been punished; and no lawsuit will change that.

I don’t know what the solution is, but there has to be a better way.

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