This is why I feared staying in love with the Tour de France.
It is all here
That is if you want to read and puke over shit that just keeps on happening... The Giro went by without a hitch, but here, in the biggest race on earth, it was just bound to happen. And to one of the most respected riders in the peloton. He's lost my respect to say the very least.
Here's the cyclingnews.com take on it:
Cycling News Flash, July 12, 2008
Edited by Laura Weislo
Tour's first doping positive reported
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Spaniard Manuel Beltrán has become the 2008 Tour de France's first doping positive. The Liquigas rider's A sample tested positive for the banned blood booster erythropoeitin following the first stage which ended in Plumelec last Saturday.
Tour organiser, Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), announced Friday evening that it had received confirmation from the French Anti-doping Agency (AFLD) of the positive result.
"The organisation of the Tour de France has received the confirmation from the AFLD that Manuel Beltrán had been tested positive after the first stage," the ASO statement said. "They notice the decision of the team Liquigas to exclude Beltrán from the Tour de France, according to the contract signed with all the teams engaged in the Tour."
The Liquigas team announced that it had immediately withdrawn Beltrán from the race, and suspended him from the team. Liquigas press officer Gabriele Sola confirmed the news to Cyclingnews. "Beltrán gave a positive and the police at this moment are at the hotel. The team suspended Beltrán immediately and he is pulled out from the Tour. If the counter-analysis confirms his positive, then Beltrán will be fired and have to pay the cost."
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Team manager Roberto Amadio said he was "shocked" by the news. "We will await the outcome of further investigations and at the same time, albeit with pain, we are prepared to take stricter measures, with full respect for the values that have always been evident in our team."
The worldwide press received the news before the ASO could make an announcement, which the organisation said it regretted, saying some reporters have not yet understood that the determination in the fight against doping is total, "and that the noose is tightening on the cheaters".
The French newspaper L'Equipe reported that Beltran was one of ten riders found by the AFLD to have abnormal blood values in the days prior to the Tour. On July 3 and 4, the AFLD performed blood tests on riders "to allow for subsequent targeted doping tests during the Tour de France," the agency announced Friday.
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The other nine riders who showed abnormal results will be informed this weekend by the AFLD, but the agency said that it would take no action against the riders other than to suggest that they submit the results to their team doctor "because of the possibility of a health risk," the statement read.
The AFLD said that it does not have the results of the same riders' testing which was performed in the first half of the year as part of the UCI's program, but "in the spirit of cooperation with the international federation" it would forward the results to the UCI for inclusion with those riders' profiles.
Beltrán, one of Lance Armstrong's former mountain domestique has ridden for the Liquigas team since leaving the Discovery Channel in 2006.
AND THE FOLLOW-UP:First Edition Cycling News, July 12, 2008
Edited by Laura Weislo & Ben Abrahams
Beltrán taken for questioning, Liquigas to continue
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French police took Spaniard Manuel Beltrán into custody for questioning on Friday night following news that he had tested positive for the performance enhancing drug EPO. The 37-year-old Beltrán was taken away from the Hotel des Voyageurs, where he and the Liquigas team were staying. Police also searched Beltrán's hotel room.
"The police have taken Manuel away for questioning," a Liquigas spokesman told the BBC. "He was not sharing the room with any other team-mates. It was only his room that was searched."
Beltrán, a former mountain domestique for Lance Armstrong's US Postal and Discovery Channel teams, was immediately removed from the race by his team, a move which may have salvaged Liquigas' chances at continuing in the Tour de France.
While reports initially stated that should Beltrán's B sample come back positive, the team would be forced to withdraw from the race, the German television station ZDF received confirmation from the Amaury Sport Organistion (ASO) that the team could remain in the race.
The station also reported that the team will escape the 100,000 euro penalty which was part of the ASO's anti-doping contract signed by all teams prior to the Tour, because they removed Beltrán immediately after the positive A-sample.
Liquigas manager Roberto Amadio said that his rider has said that he has done nothing wrong, and has been suspended until the counter-analysis he has requested can be performed. But, he said, if it is also positive, he will be fired.
The news of the doping positive struck a blow to the Tour de France, which was hoping to clean up its image after multiple doping scandals in the 2007 event. During last year's Tour, there were no fewer than five positives announced during the Tour or shortly after, and the race leader, Michael Rasmussen (then of Rabobank) was removed from the race after it was revealed he had falsified his pre-Tour anti-doping whereabouts declarations.
The doping scandals led to the withdrawal of the Astana team, whose leader Alexander Vinokourov had tested positive for blood transfusion, as well as the Cofidis team of Cristian Moreni, who tested positive for testosterone.
This year's Tour was touted as a "cleaner" race after the UCI began its biological passport programme, and several teams such as Team CSC-Saxo Bank, Team Columbia and Garmin-Chipotle instituted the use of blood profiling to detect the effects of doping. The method is thought to be more effective than traditional doping controls at detecting the use of performance enhancing drugs.
The ASO in its statement declared the positive test result of Beltrán as evidence that the controls are working. "The determination in the fight against doping is total, and ... the noose is tightening on the cheaters," it said.
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