Second Edition News for October 1, 1998
Contracts and Transfers
* ONCE are chasing Abraham Olano for next season. They see a future Tour
de France winner in him. Banesto have apparently upset his wife and manager
Karmele (see more below). She has said they are disorganised and have strange
tactics. Olano gets around $US1m a year.
* Following the decision to give Marcel Strauss a contract, the Post Swiss
Team is also giving a contract to Stefan Rütimann from the Swiss amateur
Team Schaller. The 20 year old Rüttimann is currently riding as a stagiaire
the Ericsson-Villiger team, as is Strauss.
World Championships
It has been announced that Laurent Jalabert will not go to Valkenburg
to defend his World ITT Championship jersey. He has been threatened
by the UCI with a ban if he did not withdraw his statements which
inferred that the bureaucracy at the UCI were acting like nazis and
vampires. He was angry over the way the riders were treated during the
Tour de France in the wake of the Festina scandal.
Apparently, the UCI worry about what a rider says about them and have
written two letters demanding an apology with the threatened sanction
that they would stop him riding at the Worlds if he refused. The UCI
would officially ban him at their meeting in Valkenburg next Sunday.
Jalabert says that he has decided not to travel to the Netherlands.
He cites tiredness and illness (bronchitis) as the reason. The French
manager Charly Mottet has also said (bravado) that:
"It's up to him. He has to take his responsibilities but I can say that his
absence is not going to affect the team in a significant way."
Drugs Update
The doping commission of the Swiss Cycling Federation has announced that
Alex Zuelle, Laurent Dufaux and Armin Meier will be suspended for 8 months
and finded a total of 3000 Swiss Franks each. The penalties followed
face to face interviews with the riders and the Federation.