Ullrich, Basso out of Tour
STRASBOURG, France -- Tour de France co-favorites Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich were suspended by their respective teams yesterday because of links to a Spanish doping investigation, snuffing out their much-anticipated duel to succeed Lance Armstrong as Tour champion and putting the balance of their careers in jeopardy.
The last-minute withdrawals of Italy's Basso and German icon Ullrich, who have appeared on the Tour podium nine times between them, left the race without its two best-known and charismatic stars.
They followed days of slow leaks in the Spanish media concerning the case, which involves alleged clients of two Madrid doctors busted for possession of performance-enhancing drugs and blood doping equipment.
Team CSC director Bjarne Riis, the stolid Dane who won the 1996 Tour, said he thought it was best to pull Basso from the race after his name appeared prominently in documents forwarded to Tour officials by Spanish criminal authorities.
``I could not let him start," Riis said at the center of a roiling scrum of reporters on the steps of the team hotel. ``I'm sad for cycling, for Ivan, for me, for the team as well."
Basso, who finished second last year and third in 2004, left Strasbourg without making a statement. The 28-year-old won the Tour of Italy last month.
A bus carrying T-Mobile riders and staff to a media event yesterday morning turned around and headed back to the hotel after officials received the files from Spain.
T-Mobile also suspended Ullrich's teammate Oscar Sevilla and team manager Rudy Pevenage, Ullrich's longtime mentor, according to team spokesman Luuc Eisenga. None spoke to reporters.
According to El Pais, the Spanish newspaper that leaked many details of the investigation, some records found in the doping bust referred to ``son of Rudy." The paper speculated that this was a code name for the 32-year-old Ullrich and also cited bags of blood labeled ``Jan."
Seven other riders were suspended by mutual agreement of their team directors after reviewing the documents. Five were members of the Astana-Wurth team formerly known as Liberty Seguros, forcing that team to withdraw from the race.
There is still no hard evidence on the record against any of nine riders cited as suspects in the case so far in a statement by the UCI, cycling's governing body. Other riders' names continued to float around the Internet yesterday. Spanish media reports have claimed that as many as 58 riders are involved, 22 of them on Tour teams.
No one is gloating about cycling's worst body blow since the 1998 Festina affair, but yesterday's events increase the chances that another American rider will be on the podium when the race ends with a sprint on the Champs-Elysees in three weeks.
Gerolsteiner's Levi Leipheimer, Phonak's Floyd Landis, and longtime Armstrong lieutenant George Hincapie, who finished sixth, ninth, and 14th last year, all were considered top contenders even before the Spanish scandal heaved a boulder into the pond.
Others who will try to fill the vacuum include Australian Cadel Evans, Spain's Alejandro Valverde, and Ukrainian Yaroslav Popovych, who could be appointed the Discovery Channel team's leader if Hincapie falters.
The 2006 Tour will start minus last year's top five: Armstrong; Basso; Ullrich, the '97 Tour winner and five-time runner-up; Spain's Francisco Mancebo, who also was pulled from the start line by his team, France-based Ag2r, and told team officials he planned to retire; and peripatetic Astana-Wurth leader Alexander Vinokourov.
Vinokourov hasn't been implicated in the scandal, but five of his teammates on the Tour squad were. The most prominent is Joseba Beloki of Spain, who twice finished third in the Tour and was second in 2002. His career began to unravel the following year after a horrendous crash on a descent with Armstrong chasing. Armstrong detoured across a field to avoid hitting Beloki in one of the seven-time champion's most memorable Tour moments.
Tour director Christian Prudhomme said so many other non-Tour riders on the Astana-Wurth team have been linked to the case that he considered it evidence of organized doping.
Teams will not be permitted to replace the suspended riders, and a team must have six of its nine riders to start the race.
CSC's Christian Vande Velde, who rode for Liberty Seguros during the 2004 season, said the revelations about his former team made him glad he left. ``It's an empty feeling . . . I never felt like I was part of that team," said the native of suburban Chicago.
Veteran Tour commentator Paul Sherwen said the immediate aftermath of this implosion feels different from the shock waves that followed the arrest of a Festina staff member in 1998, which began the sequence of events that led to that team's expulsion and other withdrawals from the race.
``That was like a bullet out of the dark," Sherwen said. ``This has been percolating for a month, and everyone's been waiting to see if it would come out."
Sherwen said he was glad the information emerged before the race rather than in midcourse as it did in 1998, but added that he is withholding judgment on the riders until much more is known.
``I'm still convinced that some of these guys will be proven innocent," Sherwen said.
