Basso with Discovery

No surprise really. Discovery is a big budget team with lofty goals. It is also no surprise to me that Discovery has the "best doctors" around, if you know what I mean. It seems that Phonak's doctors are hacks, as an alarming number of their riders have been caught doping. I still like Lance, but to think that he didn't cheat and dope up is absolutely naive and completely ridiculous. If doping is so rampid in professional cycling, does it diminish my love of the sport? Not at all. It's just part of it. In cycling, people cry that anti-doping laws aren't stringent enough. That's bs, as NFL players caught failing drug tests get 4-game suspenions, while still being paid. Professional cyclists typically get two year bans. American football, baseball, basketball.....just as dirty. It's just part of sport when money, sponsorship and high expectations are involved.

Here's an excerpt from a VeloNews article -
******************************************************
Basso's signing however has not been welcomed by all.

After a summer of doping suspicion and doping scandal the AIGCP, the body which represents professional teams, agreed in principle they would not sign riders implicated in the investigation, dubbed Operación Puerto.

It was also agreed they would work towards allowing the sport's ruling body, the UCI, to request DNA samples from all riders before the end of the year in a bid to crank up the fight against doping.

Basso was cleared to ride by his national governing body after a Spanish judge declined to supply further evidence from Operación Puerto to those seeking sanctions against any of the suspects.

That was enough for seven-time Tour winner Lance Armstrong's former team, Discovery, to finally secure Basso's signature after years of pursuing him. However, other teams expressed concern, saying the deal was a violation of a unified stand not to hire riders who have declined to cooperate with the Puerto investigation.

Francaise des Jeux team manager Marc Madiot feels that any remaining suspicion over Basso would disappear with a simple DNA test.

He said it would prove that his blood was not among those found at the laboratory of Eufemiano Fuentes, a Spanish sports doctor suspected of masterminding a doping and blood doping network.

"I'm annoyed that what we agreed on (not to sign suspected riders) has not been respected," he said in Friday's edition of L'Equipe.

In an apparent jibe at Discovery Channel he added that "at least some light has been shed on the situation. We now know who is who and where they stand. We want to believe Basso is innocent, but he should give a DNA sample so that it can be compared the blood found in bags in Madrid."

Thus far, Basso has refused to give a DNA sample.

His former manager at CSC, former Tour de France winner Bjarne Riis, had been under pressure from the team's sponsor to get rid of doping suspects and he is annoyed the AIGCP agreement was not respected.

"I am left without the best (rider) in the world, but I also risked my team disappearing," Riis told Gazzetta dello Sport this week. "Only a few days ago, the Pro Tour teams expressed their intention to stop signing riders mixed up in Operación Puerto in addition to requiring a DNA test.

"In the end, the interests of individuals prevail while the initiatives go disregarded."

T-Mobile director Rolf Aldag was also angry at what he called a "double standard," after his team also fired a top Tour contender, Jan Ullrich, after the Puerto allegations were released.

Aldag told www.express.de that he finds it "inconceivable that Basso will sign with Discovery Channel. Both he and Ullrich should prove their innocence," by supplying DNA samples.