Agence France Presse posted a story earlier today that professional cyclist Alejandro Valverde has been banned from racing on Italian soil for two years, based on his role in Operacion Puerto.
The Guardian posts a Reuters story, which notes:
Spanish cyclist Alejandro Valverde has been banned from racing in Italy for two years for his involvement in the Operacion Puerto doping scandal, an Italian anti-doping tribunal ruled on Monday.
The move puts Valverde’s participation in July’s Tour de France at risk as part of the route this year passes through Italy.
CyclingNews.com also has the story, as does Cycling Weekly and The Associated Press.
Ansa.it also has an update, which notes:
The rider may face possible criminal charges under Italy’s strict anti-doping laws.
Britain’s The Telegraph notes Valverde’s suspension, the Beeb has a story, and even The Sporting News gets in on the act with a blog post headlined This Week in Sports Doping, which also includes comments about Manny Ramirez and NASCAR driver Jeremy Mayfield.
Not that it adds much new, but VeloNews also ran a short piece about Valverde’s suspension yesterday.
On the other hand, CyclingNews.com has a piece (you’ll have to scroll down a bit) where Valverde responds to news of his sanction. No surprise, he’s already filed an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
In a statement released by the rider, an ‘indignant’ Valverde said that the “unjust sanction” was instituted, “after an irregular procedure by an incompetent organisation and without any respect for his rights, which were absolutely not respected as he had no possibility to defend himself.”
No word yet whether the UCI will enforce the ban outside of Italy.
Cycling Weekly posted a good summary of the Valverde case, which notes that the UCI is waiting on the full text of the Italian decision before they decide whether to enforce the ban outside of Italy. According to CW, CONI has 30 days to produce the requested documents.
Valverde (*-I)
So, if you’re Casse d’Espargne (a Spain based team) do you start Valverde in LeTour?
In other news, WADA is considering adding Birch Boy syrup to the list of banned substances.
Eightzero,
Birch Boy syrup sounds good. I’m sure it’s performance-enhancing and must be banned. 😉
Given that Le Tour makes a foray into Italy (according to news reports, I haven’t looked at the actual map of the stages), I’d say that Caisse d’Espargne would be taking a huge gamble to start Valverde. Now, if Tour organizers were to change the route of that one stage, it could be another story.
What recourse does Italy have if Valverde is in the TdF? I doubt they could arrest him. And since it isn’t an Italian race, they can’t prevent him from entering. Which leaves only the option of telling France they can’t race in Italy. That’d be interesting. They don’t want to be in a position of letting Italy dictate their race policy. And they don’t want to be in the position of protecting an apparent doper.
So I think that they’ll avoid the issue, and Valverde won’t be racing. We’ll have de facto international enforcement of the ban, even if it isn’t official.
And if that’s the case, it could well be that the only place left for Valverde to race would be in… Spain.
And so we move on to the slippery slope or icy precipice. How many other athletes are unwelcome in one country or another?
Perhaps most importantly, How does WADA feel about all of this? Aren’t their toes being stepped on? Weren’t they created exactly for the purpose of eliminating these international disputes? If they push the turf war though, they’re in the same position as TdF above: protecting their own power means they have to argue in favor of Valverde. I don’t think the IOC would like that. Doing nothing though will make them appear weak.
Perhaps they’ll try to come up with an arguement that says what CONI did was alll well and good and within WADA code and that the world has to honor it. That’s another argument pointing towards international enforcement. And WADA is very good at twisting their code to suit their needs.
tom
Tom,
Judging by the Ansa.it article that I just added to the post, it appears that Valverde could face criminal charges. If that’s true, he could be arrested should he participate in the Tour and ride the stage that passes into Italy. That would be an ugly sight, Italian police flagging down the peloton to put Valverde in handcuffs and haul him away.
From what i had heard, if Valverda was banned in Italy due to OP, as has happened, It would be unlikely that he’d be allowed to start the TDF. For one, I had heard that after Italy make’s it’s move, other organizations were likely to follow suite. Also, ASO would not want the issues and hassles of having him in the Tour since they were going to Italy, so they’d refuse to let him start anyway.
I suspect that regardless of how any appeals go (and I would bet that in short order, the UCI will issue a ban against Valverde for 2 years, minimum), the ASO will either quietly “encourage” Caisse d’Espargne to keep Alejandro off their starters list for Le Tour or outright make it publicly clear that he’s persona non grata at the 2009 edition of the race. I would expect that once the UCI bans Valverde, he’ll appeal to the CAS. But I doubt that the CAS will either rule before the Tour starts or rule in his favor.
The Spanish federation may choose to ignore the ban and allow Valverde to race in Spain, but that might create problems for other Spanish riders, so I’m not sure they will risk that. But one never knows. Perhaps the UCI will not try to extend the ban, and perhaps Valverde will race everywhere but Italy. Stranger things have happened. 😉
I had to check this myself. The Tour passes through Italy but doesn’t stop or start there.
If CONI proposes to make something of it, it would be interesting to see how they plan to proceed. The practical solution — thinking back to those conflict-of-laws conundrums beloved of civil procedure professors — is, you don’t fight, you just agree on your jurisdiction. For instance, French gendarmes and officials accompany the Tour and retain a certain authority even when it ventures off French soil. The legalities get arranged beforehand. (I think Phil and Paul have mentioned this in their commentary during past Tours.) Now, the impractical solution, if CONI is gonna be difficult about Valverde in the Tour — short of flagging the peloton down at the border, hoping for a puncture, or waiting for a natural break, what are they supposed to do? No matter what, they’ll look like perfect fools. (Not that that isn’t a possibility. Anything can happen in cycling. But a stunt on the road would be sort of a stretch.)
Long-range, though, this could turn into a problem for Valverde. In other news, this certainly answers the question of which team will be Alberto Contador’s future employer. It’s the only team he could ride for, really. It was just a matter of waiting for a spot to open up.
TAF and Rant’s comments are interesting. CONI probably can’t do anything about the TdF directly. It’s not their race, even though it comes into Italy. Pressure ASO, Cd’E sure. Valverde presumably has a Spanish racing license, and CONI could maybe threaten the spaniards with a tit-for-tat deal: If you don’t pull his spanish license, we’ll refuse to recognize other’s spanish licenses in italy
I have no clue how UCI can unify this. UCI derives it’s authority under contract from the licensing state – in this case, Valverde gets to race in UCI events becuase he has a spanish license. CONI can go after organizers in Italy (remember how USAC got warped out of shape about Hamilton’s participation in a charity event, and FL’s participation in Leadville?) via their NGB – refuse to recognize any race that allows Valverde in it for national points and rankings. But LeTour? Don’t see how, unless there is some penal law (or even civil infraction) under the laws of Italty that allow the gendarmes to (literally!) take Valverde off his bike.
Stranger and stranger. And ya know…ya wonder if Valverde couldn’t get in front of this somehow. He never failed a dope test. Like Basso, he is suffering from guilt by association. Basso never inhaled. I see no proof Valverde did either.
Puerto seems based solely on the anti-doping establishment being pissed that the cheaters are better than they are. They had bags of blood, money was being exchanged, there was a doping ring, and someone just stumbled across something by accident to spring the whole case. So now they have to find some way to make some charges stick, otherwise they look like the bumbling boobs they are. But there’s no real test for autologous blood doping, is there? Yet? Oh, wait, UCI has the blood passport coming “soon.” Surely that will fix everything.
I am pretty sure that Italia has offered the use of his soil for next TDF with an obligation to respect Italian laws… So Vavlverde being banned from racing in Italia, TDF has to not let him race. Quite simple.
Even if it were not the case, riders have to respect laws of countries were they race, so Valverde could be stop at the border, and probably Italian Authority would have sent a mail to Valverde informing again that he is not allowed to race on Italian soil even with TDF!
Without arrest of Valverde in Italia, Valverde would probably DNF because the UCI rules include something saying that “the racing rules (and riders) have to follow counties laws).
I might be inclined to agree, Jean, but what law? CONI has what police power in Italy? I can say with some confidence, USAC and USADA have no general police power in the US.
eightzero,
Given that doping has been criminalized in Italy, the question becomes: Which agency has the power to arrest and prosecute individuals accused of doping? CONI has that power in a sporting sense, do they also have that power in a legal sense? Or do they work with other police and justice officials in prosecuting those who’ve broken the law? I’m guessing that CONI has no power to arrest, but that they work closely enough with those who do that they could perform a stunt like pulling Valverde (and/or the whole group he’s riding with) over and arrest him if he rode onto Italian soil in July. Of course, that could only happen if the UCI doesn’t seek to ban him worldwide. We’ll see how that goes.
Rant: agreed.
In “other” news:
Clemens(*)
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g4LJ88PM6xnstAguh6bJAQ1S63EQD984SDUO2
I really like the Rocket’s defense: “Clemens said he had given a DNA sample to federal investigators but that syringes provided by McNamee would not link him to performance-enhancing drug use. ‘It’s impossible because he’s never given me any,’ Clemens said.”
Oh, it’s possible alright. Remember, to find dope, all they have to do is “use their experience” or …whatever.
Would Italy arrest Valverde anyway? isn’t part of the reason Operacion Puerto has gone on so long is because the evidence isn’t as strong as they’d like? And if they had real strong evidence, wouldn’t they have waited until he was on Italian soil and then arrested him?
Seems to me they’re banning him because they’re pretty sure he did it and are tired of waiting for Spain to do something about it. And aren’t there other riders who fasll into the same boat?
I wish the cycling organizations would get all their crap together.
Ken,
I suspect that part of the reason Valverde didn’t attend the hearing on Monday was to avoid what might come afterwards. Once CONI had officially found Valverde guilty of being part of the whole OP thing, the next thing that might have happened would be his arrest by police. Just speculation on my part, but …
It would definitely be good to see all of the various national federations singing from the same choir book. The sport would be a whole lot better off if there were consistent rules that are enforced consistently, wouldn’t it. But that’s probably too much to ask.
Rant wrote: “It would definitely be good to see all of the various national federations singing from the same choir book. The sport would be a whole lot better off if there were consistent rules that are enforced consistently, wouldn’t it. But that’s probably too much to ask.”
Wrt anti-doping, that is exactly what WADA promises, but fails to deliver – in spades….
There is a while that international system of measurement has been proposed, but there is still 3 countries ;D using incredible measurement like feet, pounds, miles, gallon or Fahrenheit…
Difficult not to be indulgent with WADA, isn’it?
HAHAHA! Good one, Jean!
And there are even some countries still using incredible languages, like French. Oh, wait…I forgot…that’s the language of the IOC! Gee…wonder why they didn’t adopt Greek? After all, isn’t that where it all started?
Jean,
Really? There are two other countries who still use this ancient system of weights and measures? And here I though the US was the sole remaining vestige of that earlier time. 😉
(Of course, we’re not all speaking Esperanto, either. At least, not yet.)
Rant,
Yes there is 2 other countries which are Liberia and Myanmar!
Even the English has abandonned their old habits, and next year they will progressively drive right, as training only half of the cars will drive right the first 3 months.
Jean,
Learn something new every day.
Am I understanding you correctly, the UK is changing which side of the road they drive on? That’ll be confusing. Especially for all those drivers whose cars have right-hand steering. So which half of the cars will switch sides of the road. Will it be based on their number-plates? 😉 (I can imagine all the accidents that will occur…)
Next thing you know, you’ll be telling me they’ve adopted the euro and dropped the pound. (Of course, last time I lived there, the country was just about to switch from the old £/s/d to the decimal £ system. Much easier to make change using “new pence,” as they were called back then.)
The Spanish Federation is the correct body to sanction/not sanction a Spanish licensed rider. The Italians are free to pass evidence on to the Spanish Federation if they would like to press for a Spanish rider’s sanction.
If the Spanish Federation is unresponsive, then it is WADA’s and/or UCI’s duty to make sure the Spanish Federation fulfills its responsibility to carefully consider the evidence. There are a number of options for remedies. (The obvious pitfall here is, what is the corrective mechanism when evidence is passed along to another nation’s federation and said evidence is merely rubber stamped for an action against the athlete?)
CoNI’s action against Valverde is irregular and wrong. CoNI has no business taking action against a Spanish licensed cyclist. This opens up the possibility/probability that the Spanish will retaliate in the future. WADA’s system was supposed to ensure such nationalistic retaliations would not happen. The probability of nationalistic retaliation is a product of wada playing fast and loose with enforcement of its own code.