News for March 6, 2002

Edited by John Stevenson

Sainz still in custody

Frank Vandenbroucke may have been released after his arrest last week, but the man at the centre of the affair, horse breeder Bernard 'Dr Mabuse' Sainz, is still being held by Belgian police on charges of possessing illegal hormone products.

"He remains detained," said Sainz's lawyer Jan Van Lanpschot to reporters yesterday. Van Lanpschot said he would appeal the decision to hold Sainz.

Sainz was stopped for speeding last week and arrested when police found syringes and "products of suspicious origin" in the boot of his car. Sainz maintains that the substances found are homeopathic remedies.

Sainz told police he had spent the previous night at Vandenbroucke's house and police subsequently raided chez VDB, allegedly finding morphine, clenbuterol, and EPO.

Lindberg not seriously hurt

After her crash in yesterday's second stage of the Tour de Snowy, Swedish champion Madeleine Lindberg is recovering well and expected to be back on the bike within a few days. Fortunately, Lindberg's injuries looked worse in photographs than they turned out to be when she reached hospital for treatment.

"It's a lot worse than it looks," she told Cyclingnews before the start of stage 4 in Adaminaby. "Nothing is broken. The knee is a little bit messed up. I think it will be fine. The doctor said I would be on the bike within a couple of days. I don't know yet about the knee."

:"This is my first time here. Until the crash it was really nice around here. I think I will come back for vacation some time...without the blue eyes."

Armstrong out of Murcia

US Postal star Lance Armstrong will not start in the Vuelta Ciclista a Murcia (Tour of Murcia) which starts in Spain today, March 6. Armstrong is suffering from gastro-enteritis and joins Tour de France rival Jan Ullrich (Telekom) on the Murcia no-show list. Ullrich pulled out on Monday because of the knee injury that has been plaguing him all winter.

Armstrong is now expected to make his season debut at Milan-San Remo, March 23.

However Marco Pantani will be among the riders who start in Murcia, and he will be determined to break the pattern of last year's early season where he repeatedly started with a verbal bang and finished with a whimper, pulling out of stage races well before the finish.

Despite the lack of Ullrich and Armstrong, this year's Murcia is set to entertain, with a varied parcours. The first three stages are rolling, but should still provide chances for the sprinters to stretch their early-season legs.

Stage four, however, is for the mountain men, with four climbs, including one over 1100 metres. If that does not decide the outcome, the last day's 12.9km individual time trial could be decisive.

Stages

Stage 1 - March 6: Murcie-Fortuna , 173.6km
Stage 2 - March 7: Beniel-San Javier , 160.3km
Stage 3 - March 8: Molina-Alguazas , 178.5km
Stage 4 - March 9: Ceuti-Alhama , 173.6km
Stage 5 - March 10: Murcie-Murcie ITT , 12.9km

Cooke gets fitted up

Nicole and Ernesto Photo: © Tim Maloney/CN

Here's British junior world champion Nicole Cooke doing the grin and grip with master bike builder Ernesto Colnago. Cooke recently travelled to Italy to be fitted for her new Colnago bikes by maestro Ernesto himself and is seen here with a Colnago/Ferrari mountain bike, though she is expected to concentrate on road racing for 2002.

Cooke signed a couple of weeks ago for Deia-Pragma-Colnago, the Spanish-Italian team led by dual Giro d'Italia and Tour de France winner Joane Somarriba.

Giro raid suspects revealed

The Italian edition of GC magazine has published a list of the riders under investigation after last year's raid on the Giro d'Italia. Some of the riders named include:

Marco Pantani: insulin
Jan Ullrich: corticosteroids, stimulants and anaesthetics
Jose Arrieta, Jon Odriozola & Unai Osa: caffeine
Vicente Belda (Kelme team manager): caffeine and diprophiline
Francisco Javier Fernandez: testosterone, steroids
Alvaro Gonzalez de Galdeano: caffeine
Dario Frigo: steroids
Rodriguez Fuentes: cafferine, diprophiline
Hans De Clercq: caffeine
Jose Galilea: caffeine
Jesus Hoyos: caffeine, corticosteroids
Vicente Navarte Izza: caffeine
Pablo Lastras Garcia: caffeine, corticosteroids
David Lasa: caffeine
David Chica Navas: caffeine
Bruno Olivieri: insulin
Julio Alberto Perez Cuapio: caffeine
Stefano Zanini: insulin

UCI and FFC cleared of apathy

The court of appeal at Douai yesterday cleared the French cycling federation (FFC) and international governing body the UCI of apathy in the fight against doping in cycling. The two organisations were severely criticised by the court in the 2000 Festina trial, and accused of having an "ambiguous" attitude toward doping.

However, the court of appeal found that the facts of the Festina case "did not make it possible to establish that there had been tolerance [of drug use] on the part of these authorities." The court noted that the UCI had been involved in studies of the effects of doping products.

The court awarded the UCI and FFC symbolic damages of 0.15 Euro (equivalent to one old-style Franc).

The court also affirmed the sentence handed down to former Francaise des Jeux soigneur Joseph D'Hont. In the 2000 trial, D'Hont received a nine month suspended sentence for assisting with doping.

D'Hont was cleared of charges of possessing doping substances, and and Nicolas Terrados-Cepeda, team doctor with ONCE at the time of the Festina affair, was also cleared of importing drugs without authorization.

Domo riders on sick/injured list

Jeroen Blijlevens and Romans Vainsteins, both of Domo, have joined the wounded and unready list for the start of the season. Vainstains will miss Milan-San Remo because he'll be recuperating from an operation in the next few days to remove an abcess from his scrotum.

Blijlevens was scheduled to start Paris-Nice (March 10-17) but Domo announced on Monday that he is not in sufficiently fit condition for the hilly, week-long race.

However, rather than sit on the subs' bench, Blijlevens will ride the Guldensporentweedagse in Belgium this weekend, then the Grand Prix Erik Breukink in the Netherlands.

"My objectives are not at Paris-Nice but later in the season: the Giro and the Tour de France, then the Championship of the world in Zolder (Belgium) which will be a great challenge," said Blijlevens.

Bikesource/Cannondale Masters Cycling Team

BikeSource has announced the formation of a new masters team based out of the Lake Norman area store, north of Charlotte, NC. The team will include such notables as Ron Hinson, current Pan-Am Masters RR Champion (40-44), former professional Radisa Cubric and Tim Kerr former 1996 World Champion Triathlon Masters. Tim is also a four time national champion. He will make the transition to the road as well as competing in the American Express Triathlon Series.

Roster

John Allen
Barney Baxter
Mac Canon
Radisa Cubric
Ron Hinson
Tim Kerr
Bobby Threatt
Glen Thrift
Steve Richmond

Sponsors

Bikesource
Cannondale frames
Hind clothing
Vredestein tires
Defeet clothing accessories
Yakima racks

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Mont Ventoux Photo ©: Sirotti