At Mallorca, the pro peloton reacts to ASO
By Andrew Hood
Posted Feb. 14, 2008

Riders and managers reacted with resignation, disbelief and even anger at the news that Astana and reigning Tour de France champion Alberto Contador won’t be allowed to start the Tour and other races organized by ASO.

The general feeling prior to the final stage of the Mallorca Challenge in Spain was overwhelmingly in support of favorite son Contador; Spanish newspapers blasted the controversial decision, with editorials across the board demonizing ASO’s decision. Here’s a sampling of the reaction from key riders in the Mallorca peloton:

Alejandro Valverde, Caisse d’Epargne- “The winner of the Tour should be allowed to defend his title. You feel defenseless, to not be able to race in the Tour. We all lose. It’s another hard blow for cycling. No one understands it.”

Nick Nuyens, Cofidis- “It’s unfair. It’s difficult to reason because Contador wasn’t even on Astana last year. It’s one thing if they could have proven that there was something organized with doping on the team. There seems to be always someone who will try to cheat, but it’s not fair to punish the entire team. This is cycling we’re living now. The riders are stuck in the middle like always. We’re just small actors in a big movie. We have no power.”

VeloNews
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Well, needless to say, that sucks big time. They're bouncing from one end of the spectrum to the other.*sigh*

This one is a hard call, Astana was forced to pull their whole team last year after Alexandre Vinokourov's positive test. But this year the team is comepletely new (its basically the Disco squad), with Bryneel as manager so, in all reality it is the Disco team, both Levi and Contador, Eki and many other went with Bryneel to the Astana team. So they are punishing the new team for the old teams mistakes.. But its also understandable that a team that has so many problems suffer some sort of 'punishment' for what happened last year. Also the Puerto case to be reopened, and this leaves some what of a cloud over the many top riders, I believe that even Contador was implicated some where in that whole mess. (Puerto was a case where a Gyno's office in Spain was busted with a lab full of 'banned' materials, along with gallons of blood that was labeled with the names(so it was in some sort of code I believe) of MANY of Europe's top cyclist. Lots of blood for blood doping, and all sorts of other stuff. That took Ivan Basso off of the Disco squad last year right before the Tour started, he is still serving a suspension, I think. I feel bad for the new Astana squad, but they knew before they joined that team, its history. You would have to be a complete nim-wit to have no idea that the ASO my take some sort of retaliatory action this year.. MHO however...

Ah the drama.

I know zilch about this sport or what went down with the "old team", but it seems to me it's Astana that is being punished. Wonder if they encouraged doping? Pity the new "clean" team members are being punished for that too along the way.