Ricco positive for EPO



plectrum said:
Bro ... i'm 29 and still feel like a kid, I was a moron at 23 and certainly at 19-21 a complete retard!!! I think it must be almost impossible not to dope when everyone around you is, your team coach tells you to do it and the doctors say it will be perfectly safe ... and then you win a big race or perform exceptionally well and suddenly a big man in the team takes you aside and congratulates you kinda welcoming you into the fraternity.

Yes take responsabilities but the pressure in pro cycling to conform to the norm must be huge and especially when your idols i.e. Pantani were on the stuff.
Good post Plectrum, but for bosses to get busted, Ricco needs to talk now. If he doesn't and keeps Omerta alive, he'll be the only one to take the blame and punishment, but it will be totally his fault...
 
adamastor said:
Good post Plectrum, but for bosses to get busted, Ricco needs to talk now. If he doesn't and keeps Omerta alive, he'll be the only one to take the blame and punishment, but it will be totally his fault...
Ricco will not talk. He's still young and wants to come back, so he may throw a non-important name out there but he will incriminate the SD brass.
 
earth_dweller said:
Ricco will not talk. He's still young and wants to come back, so he may throw a non-important name out there but he will incriminate the SD brass.
He could be banned from Tour de France for more than 2 years (no invite!), especially if he decides not to talk.
 
adamastor said:
He could be banned from Tour de France for more than 2 years (no invite!), especially if he decides not to talk.
better than never having a team again if he does talk which is what happens to guys that talk and I don't think that it's really changed. (not saying it's the right thing to do by any means).

and Ricco would care more about riding the Giro on an Italian team for a few years anyway.
 
Interesting, there is a thread at DP discussing the impact of Ricco's positive...I can see it now, two guys coming to the line fighting about who has to win.
 
cyclingheroes said:
Pete how are the reactions in Italy. Here at the tour everybody (from mechanics, to riders, to management) from Liquigas and Lampre are really angry with Riccò. (and with the others, including Beltran) I don't mean pr angry, but really angry in personal conversations.
People here are angry and frustrated. This is now the second time in a row that Italians felt they had the next great grand tour champion (Basso and Ricco') who has been brought down by doping. The reaction of people who follow cycling ranges from angry to frustrated to simply resigned to the fact that this seems to be the way things happen in pro cycling. But on the Italian forums I follow he is universally being attacked/considered garbage (but we Italians are that way... we will worship the guy until he falls, then turn on him completely). :(

This is even more painful with Ricco' than with Basso. Ricco' attacked a' la Pantani, is an attacking rider who is not afraid to speak his mind. He was already a media darling here.

What it is doing is making it even more ingrained in the average joe (or should it be average giovanni?) that cycling is a sport only about doping. Last night I was listening to one of the most followed all-sports shows on a major national talk radio station, and an ex-direttore sportivo called in. He just closed the kids team he was running (I think he said in the 8 -16 y.o. group). Recently he approached parents of a promising 8 y.o. who he wanted to race on the team. The father called him up and asked point blank 'you do not intend to pump him up with doping products, do you?'. The gentleman said that he decided to shut down the team the same day. :(
 
Powerful Pete said:
Recently he approached parents of a promising 8 y.o. who he wanted to race on the team. The father called him up and asked point blank 'you do not intend to pump him up with doping products, do you?'.
Yow! You have to wonder if other D.S.'s would dope children.
 
Piepoli was cut from the team because the ds after having asked him questions found his answers evasive. Thus, he no longers had absolute confidence that Piepoli was not doping and that he was conforming to the teams stated directives. No positive yet for Piepoli. But this is a rather unique development.
Powerful Pete said:
Interesting - rumours are circulating that Piepoli tested positive in the Hautacam stage... so SD already knows and is trying to cut its losses...

Here is the l'equipe news brief on the same subject...

18/07/2008 15:09 Cyclisme - Dopage - Ricco et Piepoli licenciés

L'équipe Saunier Duval a annoncé vendredi le licenciement des coureurs italiens Riccardo Ricco, déclaré positif lors d'un contrôle antidopage dans la 4e étape du Tour de France, et Leonardo Piepoli. Dans un communiqué, Mauro Gianetti, manager de l'équipe espagnole, ne parle que d'un non-respect du code éthique de la formation pour Piepoli. Sans prononcer le mot de «dopage», cette annonce confirme les rumeurs concernant le coureur italien.
 
It may well be that Pantani was on the stuff, but he never tested positive in competition. Nor has any retain of his from a competition ever show the presence of synthetic epo. So he should be the last name someone making a point should use for the example of a doper!
plectrum said:
Bro ... i'm 29 and still feel like a kid, I was a moron at 23 and certainly at 19-21 a complete retard!!! I think it must be almost impossible not to dope when everyone around you is, your team coach tells you to do it and the doctors say it will be perfectly safe ... and then you win a big race or perform exceptionally well and suddenly a big man in the team takes you aside and congratulates you kinda welcoming you into the fraternity.

Yes take responsabilities but the pressure in pro cycling to conform to the norm must be huge and especially when your idols i.e. Pantani were on the stuff.
 
Il Pirata -

Madonna di Campiglio - Failed health check.

Hospital tests which reported HCT levels of high 50's? Do you think heamatocrit can reach that high naturally???
 
ilpirata said:
Piepoli was cut from the team because the ds after having asked him questions found his answers evasive. Thus, he no longers had absolute confidence that Piepoli was not doping and that he was conforming to the teams stated directives. No positive yet for Piepoli. But this is a rather unique development.
that is the official version.
 
"But on the Italian forums I follow he is universally being attacked/considered garbage (but we Italians are that way... we will worship the guy until he falls, then turn on him completely"

I have no problem with people having worshiped Ricco. I have a lot of problem with them acting as though they were somehow betrayed when he is caught. I posted here that I thought Ricco was doping after his ITT performances in the Giro. All of the signs about Ricco were available. ITT results that far exceeded those of the previous year. The ability to sprint at the end of a race while at the same time having long climb endurance. It was just too much. If people choose to delude themselves, like most of the posters on this forum deluded themselves about Ullrich for years, then they have no right to behave with righteous indignation, as though they were cheated, and as though they hate cheating.

Now, after Ricco's mountain stage win he was not able to get away from Evans and Menchov on Hautacam. If we are going to judge people based upon how they do relative to dopers, then isn't Evans a doper? My money says that Mechov most definitely is. And Schleck most likely is.
 
tambourlain said:
"But on the Italian forums I follow he is universally being attacked/considered garbage (but we Italians are that way... we will worship the guy until he falls, then turn on him completely"

I have no problem with people having worshiped Ricco. I have a lot of problem with them acting as though they were somehow betrayed when he is caught. I posted here that I thought Ricco was doping after his ITT performances in the Giro. All of the signs about Ricco were available. ITT results that far exceeded those of the previous year. The ability to sprint at the end of a race while at the same time having long climb endurance. It was just too much. If people choose to delude themselves, like most of the posters on this forum deluded themselves about Ullrich for years, then they have no right to behave with righteous indignation, as though they were cheated, and as though they hate cheating.

Now, after Ricco's mountain stage win he was not able to get away from Evans and Menchov on Hautacam. If we are going to judge people based upon how they do relative to dopers, then isn't Evans a doper? My money says that Mechov most definitely is. And Schleck most likely is.
As was Lance Armstrong, as is Contadope, as is Levi, as is....well, the list is long.

Best Regards
 
ilpirata said:
Piepoli was cut from the team because the ds after having asked him questions found his answers evasive. Thus, he no longers had absolute confidence that Piepoli was not doping and that he was conforming to the teams stated directives. No positive yet for Piepoli. But this is a rather unique development.
People like you are part of the problem.
 
ilpirata said:
It may well be that Pantani was on the stuff, but he never tested positive in competition. Nor has any retain of his from a competition ever show the presence of synthetic epo. So he should be the last name someone making a point should use for the example of a doper!
Pantani was the reason i took up cycling and stood many a time on a mountain pass watching him fly by but if you think he didn't dope or Piepoli, Simoni, Ricco as well as all your other GC contenders then you haven't learnt anything in 10yrs.
 
care to elaborate? what problem? The only opinion I expressed on the Piepoli thing is that it was something new for a rider to be dropped this way. I do not criticize Saulnier Duval for this move. I do not pretend to know very much about it at all. I merely reported what I read. You who are so quick to form judgements maybe have more powers than I.
jimmypop said:
People like you are part of the problem.
 
tambourlain said:
Now, after Ricco's mountain stage win he was not able to get away from Evans and Menchov on Hautacam. If we are going to judge people based upon how they do relative to dopers, then isn't Evans a doper? My money says that Mechov most definitely is. And Schleck most likely is.
Retarded internet comment #198264983264982316382