The drugs storm which all but destroyed this year's Tour de France now is encroaching on the Vuelta following the publication in France on Monday of the confessions of the Festina cyclists during their police interviews. We published those confessions earlier.
The France-Soir revelations, repeated and developed in Tuesday's L'Equipe and also in the Gazzetta dello Sport (Italy) and Marca (Spain), have rocked the Vuelta. If the coverage is anything to go by the headlines are firmly back on the drugs scandal and away from the performances of Laurent Jalabert who was holding the GC leadership. The reaction by a (very) angry Alex Zulle (who has won the last two Vuelta's), when confronted by reporters before Stage 4 started was: "Still this shit". But he cannot get away from the fact that the words he is alleged to have said to police are for all (including his teammates) to read. It is clear that all the riders except for Pascal Herve and Richard Virenque admitted to cheating. In some cases, they are claiming not to have known at the time. Further, it seems that they are saying all the Festina Tour team were following the medical protocol set by the doctor which included injections of EPO.
Zulle in particular has also seemingly dumped his old team in the deep end by saying that the EPO regime was also practised by the ONCE team when he was with them. This then implicates Jalabert among others.
The prosecutor of court at Lille confirmed that the extracts of the confessions are "authentic". This would appear to thwart the attempts by Jalabert and Zulle among others to deny their authenticity. Zulle was in denial mode yesterday saying he did not say the things that the transcripts report. Jalabert hinted at a beat up by the French press. Why? Perhaps to destroy the Vuelta in the same way that the Tour was effectively damaged. In this regard, Jalabert questioned the timing of the releases by France-Soir.
Manolo Saiz, manager of ONCE, said that the matter their lawyers were pursuing related to how the judge could allow these confessions to fall into the hands of journalists. He also said that the public had to realise that Zulle and others had made the confessions while under extreme pressure from the police. Zulle said the same.
Jalabert said that the press should talk about the race rather than these judicial matters. The UCI number 1 rider, risking a penalty himself, told the Spanish sporting magazine Marca, that the "UCI resembled 50 per cent Count Dracula and 50 per cent néo-Nazi." He compared the UCI to a dictatorship after their investigator had demanded explanations from him.
So Zulle not only has to face the authorities for what he had been up to but also his fellow riders for, allegedly, implicating them in the mess.
The organiser of the Tour de France " floored"
Jean-Marie Leblanc, organiser of the TdF was floored by the admissions of the Festina riders. He said: " This time we really have confirmation of everything we feared since the admissions of Bruno Roussel and, alas, it seems that the reports are reliable. It was systematic doping and that is terrible. Of course, I am not 'discovering' anything. During the TdF I was presented as naive, like I'd just come down in the last rains. But all of that is false. We knew that doping existed in the world of cycling but we didn't know it had taken on this scale and that it was so perverse. Today, in retrospect, I am again confronted with the difficult decision that was taken to exclude Festina from the Tour. I didn't think that the riders could continue the race in the eyes of the public, of the other riders in the peloton and of the entourages. No, it was impossible. It was hard, but it was the right decision.
It seems that he now wants to profit from the gravity of the situation to clean up the house - at any price. He said: "If after all that nothing happens then it's a desperate situation for cycling. Since August, a certain umber of measures have already been taken. Of course, we can't find the miraculous cure just like that by clicking our fingers. We are going ahead slowly but we are going ahead because it's not possible that it continues in the same manner. There has to be the means available to combat this. We have to follow the cheats persistently. Already, I can see that in France because of regular medical checks the external taking of EPO can be detected and therefore condemned. It's a first step. It's only in that way that we will be successful.
It seems however that J-M Leblanc is somewhat disillusioned. He noted "we do not organise races for the riders just like that. It's not our vocation and we don't have the heart to organise the TdF if nothing happens and if we find that other riders have made the same type of declarations. It's sad, of course, but cycling absolutely has to get on track again. Everyone has to work together. It's vital.
More on the Confessions
The admissions of Zulle, Brochard, Dufaux or Moreau reveal a sophisticated system, scientifically planned, which banalities cheating, and in which the riders stuffed with growth hormones and especially with EPO, would hide in their rooms to have a hit before going off to work, like junkies incapable of going without their dose. Or more like athletes who, in a milieu without scruples, had been made to understand that it was doping or "die" (and when doping and die?), doping or the dole, that they had to go through with it or lose all ambition, lose their dreams and not only for the Tour de France but for the whole year. It's shocking.
Zulle had said to the Police that in his opinion: "Each rider knows that if they do not use EPO hey will be left behind". He added that this year he had personally also tried growth hormones as he absolutely wanted to win the Tour de France
One of the admissions went as far as detailing the financing of the doping by the riders themselves. "The annual race earnings of the whole team would be put into an account opened by a manager in Andorra in the name of "friends of Festina: special annual earnings of riders". At the end of the season, each rider got a special payment.... To that was added the winnings that Virenque made at the end of the Tour. Before this sum was distributed between us, a part was taken out - a part which was to serve for financing the various products used by Rijkaert during the season. "
In all of the declarations made by the Festina riders, one name is used constantly - the name of Erik Rijkaert, a Belgian doctor, still in prison in Douai where he is desperate as he has received absolutely no expression of compassion from his ex-"friends", his old " patients" who detailed how he orchestrated the systematic taking of EPO or growth hormones.
Is Erik Rijkaert the only doctor so guilty in cycling? Is the Festina team unique in having been doped? "Of course not" but without proof would say his riders. In Zulle's opinion: "I think you can find EPO at the heart of all the major teams" who noted that he had been "initiated" to EPO 4 years ago in the ONCE team under the control of Dr. Nicolas Terrados, who was also heard in Lille and currently elected as ... President of the Spanish Association of Doctors of Professional Cycling!!
At ONCE, "the 20 or so riders consumed EPO" according to Zulle. However, Laurent Jalabert has formally denounced this, just like Manolo Saiz, the manager of ONCE.
Obviously, the admissions given to Police do not have the weight of formal evidence. They will only have that if they are restated to the Tribunal - but how can 7 riders possibly all change at the same time, their admissions?
Zulle, Dufaux, Brochard, Moreau, and Meier all admitted that they were doping but Virenque and Herve said that they didn't know, that they had confidence in Rijkaert when he gave them syringes. Virenque wasn't at all concerned about the publication of the revelations in the paper France-Soir, because he believes that it constitutes an obvious violation of the "secret de l'instruction" [the secrecy that is supposed to accompany the work of an investigatory judge who, based on available evidence which may include hearings with those concerned, decides whether or not to forward the matter to the Tribunal for hearing]. Because of this, Virenque probably sees himself coming out of the affair legally intact.
In that respect, the Festina riders do not risk anything. Gerald Visonneau, the main prosecutor at the Lille court, restated yesterday that the French law concerning drugs condemns the supplier rather than the consumer. And do sport (authorities) have the power to condemn people let off by the laws of their own country? The UCI has asked the French Association to decide on suspensions (between 6 months and one year, according to the rules), before the 1st of October. So will the French body responsible for this dare to omit excluding Brochard, Virenque or Herve from the Worlds and have the risk of legal action against them - which wouldn't necessarily be easy for them to win ? For the future of cycling, the follow-up that will be given to the Festina affair will have significant weight. From a sporting point of view, either the affair will be filed away and the rules will be changed or anti-doping efforts abandoned; or the Festina riders excluded from the Tour de France will be punished by the cycling bodies, and be treated as martyrs in the doping 'system'.
It seems at the moment that everybody has more to lose than to win.
The Festina affair catches up with the Vuelta...
It only took one question to Zulle after the Vuelta for him to react with "all that shit again". Because of course, the overriding preoccupation of everybody at the Vuelta was the confessions of the Festina riders, the Tour de France, and EPO. The weight of the revelations certainly showed on Zulle.
About his admission to French police he said to Swiss journalists after the race: "Okay for the EPO. But that's not new - I already said it a few weeks ago on television. It's already been going on for a few years. For growth hormones however, the answer is no. I continually denied that to police. They asked me that question a few times and I always replied no. So I don't understand why the papers are saying something else".
The insidious rumour started early in the morning. Some had received faxes, some were alerted by telephone. Manolo Saiz, the current sporting director of Jalabert and ex-s-d of Zulle , questioned by Spanish journalists prior to the departure of the race of Monday, didn't seem surprised by the news. Called into question by his old rider, who he managed until last year, he explained himself with much aplomb: " I know perfectly well what Alex said to the police because we have seen the file through our lawyer. It's not true, he did not say that. But when you're closed up in a cell for 5 hours and they 'stick it up you' (sic) and they want at any price to make you talk, then you are capable of saying anything at all. Even that you've been cuckolded by your wife".
"Okay Zulle admitted some things against us under police pressure and I forgive him for that. But he never said what has been published in the papers. I can understand that the French press wants to destroy us after what happened in the Tour de France. Their attacks are logical, but if the French press has really got hold of this information then there exists a big legal vacuum in that country and they should clean up their own act before giving lessons."
Of course there is no coincidence, but on Monday ONCE got a few 'points'. With Jalabert, the new 'amarillo' jersey of this Vuelta ; with the team doctor Nicolas Terrados (on whom a shadow was cast last July following his questioning by Police and who was subsequently let go and authorised by the French judge to continue his work), who has just been elected President of the Spanish Association of Doctors of Professional Cycling and who will therefore be the spokesperson to the UCI. And finally for an interview with Jalabert, which for the manner and the content could only be qualified as impertinent, who described the officials of the UCI as " half Count Dracula and half neo-nazi". In response, the UCI demanded a sanction for defamation and according to the rules of the UCI, Jalabert risks a suspension of one to six months.
The general atmosphere did not spare the entourages. Jose-Miguel Echavarri, general manager of Banesto said: "I hope that soon there'll be help to tell us where we are, where we should be and how we should get there. We are living in a process of total confusion. Everybody talks about Europe but Europe is not just France."
The question of the future was also being considered at Festina. In Barcelona, Gines Gorris, the right-hand person of Migual Rodriguez, the Festina boss, said: "We don't want war; we want to rebuild and we ask that we be offered a hand rather than be criticised. We named Juan Fernandez as the new sporting director because we have projects. But please let us work in serenity and peace!"
A position confirmed by Miguel Rodriguez who said two days ago "If there is a war, some will come out dead. But not only in Festina. I have had three legal confrontations with Mr. Verbruggen and I gained all three of them. I have over him, as I do over the president of the French Federation, a file of a few floors high. I assure you that it is not bribery. I am ready to go to the end to defend my riders. I am sure that Mr. Verbruggen and Mr Baal will not forget that."
Some words from Jalabert after Monday's Vuelta:
"It's Zulle's word against others. Unfortunately, it's always those who speak last who are right. Today, in front of your microphones, I could have some fun by speaking badly about whoever I wanted and everybody would believe me."
Concerning his remarks about the UCI being a "dictatorship", made to the newspaper Marca the night before, Jalabert responded: "It's just like I said. At the moment there are only about 2 or 3 riders who are being heard by the UCI about doping and they are, funnily enough, riders at the end of their careers. I think that they are there , not for the good of cycling but for the possibility of a new professional life. They are riders who are today giving lessons, but who in their time won lots of races. They just shouldn't take us for "arses" and especially not try to make us believe that they were "walking in clear waters" themselves.
I am not worried about anything coming out. Lately, everything and anything has been said and apparently that is continuing. I am not used to commenting about legal affairs, but there are lots of things that surprise me. .... I thought that there was a "secret de l'instruction". Instead the verbals made to the Police have been published in the press !
"My conscience is clear. I know that in France, sometimes I am misunderstood but that doesn't worry me. Public opinion is what it is, and it is often conditioned by a lot of things. Sometimes I'm in sometimes I'm out. But cycling is still my passion and also what makes me live. If people aren't happy, it's not my problem. "
" I don't feel too concerned by what Zulle said to the police. In fact I wasn't even aware that it had been made public. I am only wondering why it has come out now: it's certainly not the best moment, with the start of the Vuelta. I think that there is a will to hurt cycling. In any case, for us on the bikes, that's the way we see it."
Commonwealth Games Drugs Strategy
There will be a massive effort involving some 160 staff at the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Malaysia to combat the use of banned drugs.
If we look at results of prominent Aussies over the last 3 years, you will notice some big improvements. The velodrome in Manchester is very fast, plus smaller than Perth and so Perth times in 1997 should be the slowest.
Shane Kelly rode 1.02.777 in 1996, 1.03.156 in 1997 and then 1.02.261 in 1998. He only finished 2nd this year but it was his fastest time over those years. If he performed at his best and recorded the 2nd fastest time at Worlds in the last 3 years then how can you criticise his ride?
Michelle Ferris has rode 11.546 then 11.476 and then 11.341 at last 3 worlds, which is an improvement each time. How can you criticise that? In the 500m ferris rode 35.694 then 35.719 and 35.451, again fastest time at Worlds in 3 years.
Team Pursuit rode slower than 4.14 in 1996 then 4.17.905 and then big improvement to 4.08.505 to qualify. Best time in last 3 years.
Sean Eadie rode 10.810 in 1997 and then 10.410 in 1998 - continous improvement.
Darryn Hill rode 10.261 on Manchester, then 10.486 and improved to 10.349. He did not have a great Worlds in last 2 years so that is a decline in performance.
Lucy Tyler-Sharman is in the same boat as Hill in regard to times in pursuit 3.31.830 to 3.37.833 and then 3.34.546, however Lucy did win the gold medal !
Oylmpic Sprint qualify 45.140 then 46.268 for 3rd place and then 45.845 for 2nd place. Again an improvement from Perth.
There seems to be positive results from this years worlds than previous. While the team did not win as many medals as before, most riders improved their times from Perth plus for many it was their fastest time in last 3 worlds.
Yes, but we went backwards in relative terms despite more money being spent on the program. We will present a relative analysis of what each medal costs the Australian taxpayer compared to the same statistic for the three teams ranked above Australia after the 1998 Worlds. Data is being sought.