Roberto Heras SUSPENDED!

[Dead Star]

Heras suspended
Spanish rider Roberto Heras, four-time winner of the Vuelta a Espana, has been suspended by his Liberty Seguros team following a non-negative A sample test for EPO from stage 20 of the the 2005 Vuelta.

The team's management company Active Bay suspended Heras on October 27, but did not announce the action while it awaited results of the counter-analysis of the B-sample, the team said in a statement. However, the team said a leak to the press had forced it to reveal the case.

The team said it believes Heras is innocent of the charges, but affirmed its dedication to the fight against doping.

well well well . Let the debate/arguing begin.

 

[Walrus]

This is totally the fault of ASO and L'Equipe!

Wait for the B sample, then let the debate begin...

 

[tcklyde]

This is totally the fault of ASO and L'Equipe!

 

[noonievut]

Well it must be LA's fault. I bet Heras kissed Lance a few years ago, I'm not saying they frenched kissed, but maybe some spit was swapped.

God dam that Lance...Lance, Lance, Lance, Lance, Roberto, Lance.

Hey, that's how it's going to go anyway.

 

[cheapie]

why would someone use it mid-race?

 

[patch70]

why would someone use it mid-race?

My guess is that they plan to keep it going rather than start using it mid-race.

 

[cheapie]

i guess i just don't understand why one would risk getting caught. it's obvious he's going to be tested like crazy. is the pressure to win that great?

 

[patch70]

i guess i just don't understand why one would risk getting caught. it's obvious he's going to be tested like crazy. is the pressure to win that great?

Perhaps if everyone is doing it and nobody is getting caught, then it is just due to a team stuff up that somebody actually gets caught??? Maybe he got the wrong dose (too much) or there was some other mistake that the team doctor should have been aware of.

 

[patch70]

Heras suspended
Spanish rider Roberto Heras, four-time winner of the Vuelta a Espana, has been suspended by his Liberty Seguros team following a non-negative A sample test for EPO from stage 20 of the the 2005 Vuelta.

Blatant anti-Spanishism! Just typical.

 

[tcklyde]

I love how they call the sample "non negative." I was under the impression that "non negative" meant "positive."

 

[cyclingheroes]

Perhaps if everyone is doing it and nobody is getting caught, then it is just due to a team stuff up that somebody actually gets caught??? Maybe he got the wrong dose (too much) or there was some other mistake that the team doctor should have been aware of.

And perhaps there is a big powerstruggle inside the UCI, they have a big conflict with the Spanish cycling union. Somehow more and more riders are getting caught in Spain...

 

[whiteboytrash]

It doesn't look good for Roberto or Armstrong...


Four-times Tour of Spain winner Roberto Heras has been suspended for a suspected positive doping test for the banned blood-boosting substance erythropoietin (EPO) during this year's race, his team Liberty Seguros said on Tuesday.

According to a statement by Liberty Seguros, the team received notice from cycling's governing body the UCI on October 27 that Heras had tested positive for EPO during stage 20, an individual time trial between Guadalajara and Alcala de Henares.

EPO increases the level of red blood cells and thus helps improve endurance.

Liberty Seguros said that "respect for the principle of innocence and a desire to wait for the 'B' test made the team's board decide not to make the news public until the events were confirmed".

However, they said that leaks to media late on Monday night had persuaded them to make a statement.

The team said they would continue to fight to clean up the sport but believed that Heras "would be able to prove his innocence".

The result of the 'B' test is expected at the end of this month, and if it confirmed the positive test the 31-year-old rider would be obliged to rescind his contract with the team.

Heras, a former team mate of Lance Armstrong at U.S. Postal, is renowned as one of the world's best climbers and won the Tour of Spain in 2000 and for three straight years from 2003.

And perhaps there is a big powerstruggle inside the UCI, they have a big conflict with the Spanish cycling union. Somehow more and more riders are getting caught in Spain...

 

[limerickman]

..........and I tipped this man as a possible winner of the 2006 TDF !

This news is a very big surprise - Heras would be regarded as one of the sports leading figures and now it appears that he too has been cheating.

This story is bigger than Hamilton/Millar combined.

If I recall Saiz (Liberty DS) as DS at ONCE claimed that there was no doping in cycling in the immediate aftermathy of Festina (see Cycle Sport August 1998 edition).

 

[micron]

..........and I tipped this man as a possible winner of the 2006 TDF !

This news is a very big surprise - Heras would be regarded as one of the sports leading figures and now it appears that he too has been cheating.

This story is bigger than Hamilton/Millar combined.

If I recall Saiz (Liberty DS) as DS at ONCE claimed that there was no doping in cycling in the immediate aftermathy of Festina (see Cycle Sport August 1998 edition).

The same ONCE team that were named as another systematically doped team during the Festina hearings (the ONCE of Zulle and Bruyneel).

Does it detract from Heras's performance in the Vuelta? Only if you believe that the rest of the peloton are clean. However, it certainly makes the TdF's tough anti doping stance look ever more like the only logical response to what's happening in the sport.

 

[limerickman]

The same ONCE team that were named as another systematically doped team during the Festina hearings (the ONCE of Zulle and Bruyneel).

Does it detract from Heras's performance in the Vuelta? Only if you believe that the rest of the peloton are clean. However, it certainly makes the TdF's tough anti doping stance look ever more like the only logical response to what's happening in the sport.

Aye, you're right.
Zulle had left ONCE for Festina in late 1997 and was caught as part of the Voet investigation.

But if you remember during the 1998 TDF, Saiz almost got in to a boxing match during one of the stages with a TDF official and he (Saiz) withdrew ONCE from the race along with all of the other Spanish teams in protest at the police raids.
Saiz claimed that he and his riders were being victimised.

 

[whiteboytrash]

The same ONCE team that were named as another systematically doped team during the Festina hearings (the ONCE of Zulle and Bruyneel).

Does it detract from Heras's performance in the Vuelta? Only if you believe that the rest of the peloton are clean. However, it certainly makes the TdF's tough anti doping stance look ever more like the only logical response to what's happening in the sport.

…..just for my own understanding Rebiara, Armstrong and now Heres all caught up in EPO scandals.... I'm looking for a link and the only one I can find is US Postal.... oh dear they are bad boys aren't they.....?

 

[MJtje]

LIM, is this really suprising to you? You simply can NOT win a GT clean...........

Heras is another name after merckx, zoetemelk, kelly, breukink, armstrong etc etc.....

Sad, but fact of life........

..........and I tipped this man as a possible winner of the 2006 TDF !

This news is a very big surprise - Heras would be regarded as one of the sports leading figures and now it appears that he too has been cheating.

This story is bigger than Hamilton/Millar combined.

If I recall Saiz (Liberty DS) as DS at ONCE claimed that there was no doping in cycling in the immediate aftermathy of Festina (see Cycle Sport August 1998 edition).

 

[limerickman]

LIM, is this really suprising to you? You simply can NOT win a GT clean...........

Heras is another name after merckx, zoetemelk, kelly, breukink, armstrong etc etc.....

Sad, but fact of life........

I am surprised that he got caught.

Which leads us back to the other question - can a rider win a race riding
clean ?
I think that the peloton was relatively clean up to the early 1990's.

My view of doping is equivocal to the extent that I can understand someone doping in order for them to get through a race/tour (like the boys used to do back in the early days).

But what we have seen in recent years are guys doping, not to simply survive, but to go faster and faster.

 

[whiteboytrash]

Funny enough it was the Chatenay Malabry in Paris which confirmed the positive test for Heras test for the lab in Madrid….. seems to me that the boys at the Chatenay Malabry lab know there stuff….. even when its to prove that a positive is an actual fact a negative (see below)… which again proves again that Armstrong is a fraud and the lab is independent.

http://www.procycling.com/news.aspx?ID=1714

http://www.procycling.com/news.aspx?ID=1714Thehttp://www.procycling.com/news.aspx?ID=1714TheThe initial test was carried out by the UCI-accredited lab in Madrid, which delayed for a significant amount of time before informing the team, who then informed the rider. According to El Pais, the six-week delay between the test being undertaken on September 17 and the results being given to the team on October 27 were the result of caution on the part of the lab following a recent number of false positives using the EPO test. During this period, the Madrid lab sent the results to labs in Paris and Lausanne, both of which are reported to have confirmed them.

The confirmation of the Chatenay Malabry lab in Paris is particularly notable as it is this lab that has confirmed that a number of recent EPO ‘positives’, including those of Fabrizio Guidi and world track champion Juan Llaneras, were in fact false.

 

[bobke]

…..just for my own understanding Rebiara, Armstrong and now Heres all caught up in EPO scandals.... I'm looking for a link and the only one I can find is US Postal.... oh dear they are bad boys aren't they.....?

The spelling is Ribeiro I think, a different rider from Chechu Rubiera who rides for Discovery not Postal.

Heras has turned up non-negative, which is the correct designation of a positive A sample. He is not declared positive until the B sample comes back positive--something everyone should recall from the L'Equipe administered, run, and revealed drug testing on 7 year old frozen urine of Lance A.

Heras has had THE most up and down performances of any grand tour winner except Pantani perhaps. He was dropped for minutes many times over on this year's climbs and them miraculously wins the Vuelta and storms the ITTs his weakness. I think I rcall writing as much at the time.

And now all the hoopla about him auctioning his wonderful golden Vuelta bike for the victims of Katrina seems like so much ****. I'm sorry but anyone could see this a mile away.

Oh yeah, he's innocent til proven guilty, just like Scooter Libby, I forgot.

And there is no connection here with Postal and LA. Heras was tested out the wazoo under Postal and was always clean.