After losing a couple of individual riders who returned positive drug tests in this year’s Tour de France, the race has been rocked with the withdrawal of the entire Saunier Duval-Scott team.
Until the start of today’s 12th stage Riccardo Ricco held both the white and the polka dot jerseys. Today it seems his two stage wins in this year’s event, stages 6 and 9, can be explained by his positive tests for the performance enhancing EPO. Ricco has now been taken into police custody.
It’s being reported that one of the climber’s urine samples collected by the French Anti-Doping Agency AFLD showed traces of a third generation EPO called CERA (Continuous Erythropoietin Receptor Activator).
Team mate Juan Jose Cobo Acebo was one place higher in the general classification than Ricco with the Saunier Duval-Scott team mates in 8th and 9th places respectively.
Leonardo Piepoli, another member of the team, crossed the line in first place on the grueling 10th stage, finishing at the top of Hautacam. Juan Jose Cobo Acebo was a close second on the day giving Saunier Duval-Scott a coveted one two finish on one of the most prestigious stages of any Tour de France.
The decision to withdraw the entire team became clear after the team failed to sign in for the start of the day’s racing.
At the time of their withdrawal the team was also wearing the yellow numbers of the best team in the race.
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wow! I’m going to forward this to my husband who is hopelessly devoted to the Tour right now!
That is good news that they have been caught. Some people this sort of thing tarnishes the race, but for me I am glad to see cheats being caught. I like what they will be doing in Beijing this Olympics. They will be storing samples for years to come to test them when new testing procedures are made available. A good move I think.
The Cobra is bitten.
Sad
Unfortunately I don’t think it’ll be the last time someone is caught. I can’t understand the stupidity of riders thinking they’ll beat the toughest drug testing of any sport.
Dave, it certainly is good that the riders are being caught. I just wish that they did as much testing in other sports.
Cycling has the toughest testing regime of all sports so the cheats are more likely to be caught. The testing isn’t as tough in other sports so it gives the impression that they’re cleaner when it may be that the opposite is true.
You’re right, John. The Cobra is well and truly bitten.
I must say that I thought his bursts of speed while heading up massive climbs was super human. Now we know they were.
Did you know that you can “ride” the Tour De France on Google Maps? They’ve done a special ‘street view’ of the whole route. We’ve got the TV coverage on now, so I searched for the name of the place that came up in the bottom left of the screen (Mane)….and followed their progress on Google street view! It’s good fun – you can zoom in on the nice churches they whizz past, or click on the “photos” icon to see photos from the area. It’s at maps.google.com and search for “france” (it’ll come up with the whole route there) or just search the specific name of the place.
Then wait as your clock’s hands magically speed up and you realise it’s way past your bedtime 😉
Brilliant. Thanks for that, Shelley. I certainly want to spend some time playing with that one.