/ 16 June 2007

First top cyclist banned in Italian doping scandal

Bags of blood. A code name taken from his dog, Birillo. A year of secrets and lies. It all came back to haunt Ivan Basso on Friday when he received a maximum two-year ban for doping. The 2006 Giro d'Italia champion became the first high-profile rider suspended for the recent scandals rocking cycling.

Bags of blood. A code name taken from his dog, Birillo. A year of secrets and lies. It all came back to haunt Ivan Basso on Friday when he received a maximum two-year ban for doping.

The 2006 Giro d’Italia champion, who also finished on the Tour de France podium twice, became the first high-profile rider suspended for the recent scandals rocking cycling.

”I know I made mistakes and I deserve to be punished,” Basso said. ”Since I admitted my mistakes, I’ve started feeling better with myself and my family. I kept it all secret for a year, even from my family. I was afraid of getting caught.”

Last month, Basso acknowledged involvement in the Spanish blood-doping probe known as Operation Puerto. ”I want to stress that I told them everything I know, and that’s not easy for an athlete of my level,” he said. ”I lost everything — races, contracts. It’s only fair that I accept the penalty.”

Basso confessed to ”attempted doping”, but said he never actually went through with it.

”I accept the sentence. I knew the situation wasn’t an easy one,” he said. ”I’m going to continue to train and plan to return in 2009. I’ve got to look to the future.

”I train every day. I know how much I’m worth and I can’t wait to return. Thinking about the future and racing again gives me the strength to move on. This sport is my life. I’ve been racing since I was six years old.”

The 29-year-old rider was accused of using or attempting to use a banned substance or method, and ”possession of banned substances and methods”.

Basso was already suspended for nearly eight months by the CSC team last year and Discovery Channel this season, so Friday’s penalty from the Italian cycling federation will expire on October 24 2008.

He was also already banned from last year’s Tour de France. He will miss two more Tours and next year’s Giro d’Italia. He said he would leave it up to his lawyer to decide on a possible appeal.

”Right now I’m looking to the future,” he said. ”I can’t do anything else.”

Operation Puerto blew open in May last year when Spanish authorities sequestered about a hundred sacks of frozen blood in the offices of Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes.

Basso was listed as ”Birillo” — his dog’s name — in Fuentes’s books. He was among 50 riders implicated for contact with Fuentes.

”I have the impression that every now and then we lose sight of the issue at hand,” said the Italian Olympic Committee (Coni) anti-doping prosecutor Ettore Torri. ”We don’t have a problem with the cyclists; the problem is with the people that induce them to make use of doping products and tell them where to find them.”

The two-year ban satisfies the request of the International Cycling Union, and exceeds the 21-month suspension that Coni recommended last month. — Sapa-AP