Ullrich announces he will take DNA test to prove innocence....

[JohnO]

I agree - remember what happened the last time a lab did sloppy work, and an unscrupulous media obtained the results. Out of context doesn't even begin to describe what ended up being published. And they're primed to do it again - witness the CSC story. L'Equipe must be forming their own news organization - the All Innuendo Network.

JU is being wise - better to miss one tour to be sure that you get cleared, than to have your entire career trashed because of hysteria and sloppy lab work.

Sounds bad, but I still say that if I suddenly found out I was implicated in a scandal and I was NOT culpable, I would be very wary of suddenly being asked to give samples in an unorthodox, rushed manner. I don't think Ullrich should be judged for being cautious and prudent. If a DNA test is all it would take to exonerate him, then he has the right to see the evidence that is being used to compel it, and to have counsel review and confirm chain of custody, etc.

It's just too bad that the report that led to his expulsion was released so close to the start of the TdF. He may be guilty, but I prefer to wait until the dust settles and all the evidence is in before I condemn him myself.

 

[cyclingheroes]

The UCI is so sure of the guilt of the named riders that they are proceeding with sanctions. They have recieved enough, but not all of the information available to go forward. I cannot imagine that the UCI would not have absolute proof before they destroyed the career and reputation of someone like JU.

The UCI is in panic and doesn't care about anybody at the moment. They decided it's better to hang a few people as fast as they can. The UCI is lucky that ASO, TM & other teams decided to take the riders out for the TdF, if they hadn't the press would have started to ask nasty questions to the UCI (for good reasons).

 

[cyclingheroes]

Ludwig is showing transparency for the team and mentioning which riders work with whom and on what basis.

I know the journalist who wrote the article (Süddeutsche). Believe me TM is trying to hide and cover-up where they can (as lots of others in the circuit - UCI, some other teams - are doing at the moment).

 

[Capt.Injury]

How could JU not be aware? It doesn't make sense...

Here's my suggestion: The only person to have had any sort of 'contact' with Fuentes, whether in person or by phone, was Pevenage. He did all the running around while JU basically stood in the shadows. This is why JU may be technically correct when he protested that he never met or had any sort of contact with Fuentes. I don't think he ever did.

Ullrich may use that info to his advantage by claiming that Pevenage did a solo run as you suggested. He could claim he had no knowledge of what Pevenage was doing. He would also back up his claim by the fact that he never tested positive.

Ofcourse for this to work Pevenage has to agree to be the fall guy. We'll just have to see what happens next.

When referring to CSC, everyone refers to Riis's reputation as a rider and his famous 60% figure. I know Pevenage was a bike rider, but I was only a couple of years old at the time, what was his reputation when he was part of the peloton (I know he did something like win the green jersey, or win a monument, I just cna't think of it at this time) and what did his palmares look like?

 

[musette]

Sounds bad, but I still say that if I suddenly found out I was implicated in a scandal and I was NOT culpable, I would be very wary of suddenly being asked to give samples in an unorthodox, rushed manner. I don't think Ullrich should be judged for being cautious and prudent. If a DNA test is all it would take to exonerate him, then he has the right to see the evidence that is being used to compel it, and to have counsel review and confirm chain of custody, etc.

Yes, but I assume TM also told him they were thinking of excluding him from the Tour, which they decided on even before all the DSs met. At that point, if you were JU and you were innocent, you would suggest to the team that the DNA test be done immediately to try and get back INTO the Tour. After all, you are 32 years old and you know you don't have a lot of Tours left even if you would be finally proven innocent.

I do not fault JU for taking a DNA test. No rider should be required to do that. But, if you were JU and TM were warning you (which I assume they would have, given JU is their star) you could get excluded from the Tour, an innocent rider might have gone to measures they were not required to volunteer, in order to quickly establish his innocence.

More info from TM website, dated June 30:

"In the course of the investigations into the Spanish doping network, new information has been presented to the Bonn-based T-Mobile Team, which strongly contradicts Jan Ullrich's, Oscar Sevilla's and Rudy Pevenage's claims of innocence. The facts now point to contact between the implicated trio and the doctor at the centre of the probe, Eufemiano Fuentes. The sponsors of the cycling team, the mobile communications company T-Mobile, have demanded that the team management suspend, with immediate effect the two implicated athletes and the sporting director. The team management has complied with this demand and none of the three will take part in the Tour de France."

After the sponsor demanded the suspensions, surely JU must have been informed and given a "last chance" to try and demonstrate his innocence, if he could?

 

[whiteboytrash]

I completely agree. Giving out your DNA to anyone without seeing all the facts first is a smart move. He said he is willing but in the right context and to the right people. His lawyer knows this stuff and will do it correctly. Let’s not get caught up in newspaper reports about TM covering things up or Ullrich denying DNA tests. Put it this way. If your manager came to your desk and said "We have evidence that you’re taking drugs at work. You can't see the evidence but we want you to take a DNA test to prove your innocence" - What would you do ? Take it or speak to your family and lawyer first ? I know what all of you would do.

Sounds bad, but I still say that if I suddenly found out I was implicated in a scandal and I was NOT culpable, I would be very wary of suddenly being asked to give samples in an unorthodox, rushed manner. I don't think Ullrich should be judged for being cautious and prudent. If a DNA test is all it would take to exonerate him, then he has the right to see the evidence that is being used to compel it, and to have counsel review and confirm chain of custody, etc.

It's just too bad that the report that led to his expulsion was released so close to the start of the TdF. He may be guilty, but I prefer to wait until the dust settles and all the evidence is in before I condemn him myself.

 

[DV1976]

I still think that there is more to the story than what we know. Because if all the evidence they have is what has been published (officially or unofficially) then the athletes will have a field day at courts and there is no chance of sanctioning them. If I was Ullrich or Basso and found out that I was thrown out of the Tour due to unsubstanciated rumours and sloppy investigations then I would sue whoever could be sued on the face of earth...

 

[JensCph]

I still think that there is more to the story than what we know. Because if all the evidence they have is what has been published (officially or unofficially) then the athletes will have a field day at courts and there is no chance of sanctioning them. If I was Ullrich or Basso and found out that I was thrown out of the Tour due to unsubstanciated rumours and sloppy investigations then I would sue whoever could be sued on the face of earth...

I don't see who they would successfully sue, even if everything turns out to be loose rumors. They have 3 options:

1) The Tour management.
No possible, since (at least officially), they were being pulled from the race by their own teams. To successfully sue, the rider would have to both prove that the rumors are not substantial enough to warrent suspension, and also that the Tour management coerced the teams to pull the riders.

2) Their team.
It is unlikely that they would do so even if they wanted to. At least Basso doesn't seem to hold a grudge against CSC at the moment. Legally, they cant do much against the team either. It is the team that decides who gets to race regardless of their reasoning. And added to that, both CSC and TMob have made their riders sign ethical contracts that prohibits any contact with the mentioned doctors, so even if they cant prove doping, contact or suspected contact is enough for the team. It might be a different story if they stopped paying the riders wages. Then the riders could possibly get something, but it would be an uphill battle.

3) The Spanish police
Unless the report suddenly gets dismissed as baseless or fabricated, then I don't see any possible suit here.

I don't know Spanish law, but it might be possible to sue the guys who leaked the report (if that is illegal), but that would just be a suit against inproper police procedure, and nothing as such to do with the Tour or damages to the riders.

 

[micron]

Yes, but I assume TM also told him they were thinking of excluding him from the Tour, which they decided on even before all the DSs met. At that point, if you were JU and you were innocent, you would suggest to the team that the DNA test be done immediately to try and get back INTO the Tour. After all, you are 32 years old and you know you don't have a lot of Tours left even if you would be finally proven innocent.

Of course, when the Equipe story broke, we saw Armstrong leaping to have a DNA test to incontrovertibly prove his innocence, didn't we? And Hamilton?

Lucky it wasn't Ferrari under the microscope - otherwise we'd see Hincapie, Landis, Leipheimer, Popovych and some other favourites getting found out, wouldn't we?

Sorry, but this whole thing makes me sick

 

[tomkay]

I don't see who they would successfully sue, even if everything turns out to be loose rumors. They have 3 options:

1) The Tour management.
No possible, since (at least officially), they were being pulled from the race by their own teams. To successfully sue, the rider would have to both prove that the rumors are not substantial enough to warrent suspension, and also that the Tour management coerced the teams to pull the riders.

2) Their team.
It is unlikely that they would do so even if they wanted to. At least Basso doesn't seem to hold a grudge against CSC at the moment. Legally, they cant do much against the team either. It is the team that decides who gets to race regardless of their reasoning. And added to that, both CSC and TMob have made their riders sign ethical contracts that prohibits any contact with the mentioned doctors, so even if they cant prove doping, contact or suspected contact is enough for the team. It might be a different story if they stopped paying the riders wages. Then the riders could possibly get something, but it would be an uphill battle.

3) The Spanish police
Unless the report suddenly gets dismissed as baseless or fabricated, then I don't see any possible suit here.

I don't know Spanish law, but it might be possible to sue the guys who leaked the report (if that is illegal), but that would just be a suit against inproper police procedure, and nothing as such to do with the Tour or damages to the riders.

Sueing wouldn't be a viable option for both of them. I think the question here is if they were both found to be not guilty, would they remain in their respective teams? I don't see Jan staying at TMobile any longer. Basso may decide to remain at CSC only because of Riis. Ofcourse the same could be said about the teams themselves, would they still want to retain the two.

 

[Ullefan]

According to Bild, T-mobile advised Jan to give a DNA test on Friday. His manager was asked why they're still waiting to do the test, he said that his lawyers must decide that, nothing written has been given to them, they only know the newspaper has accused Jan. They will try Monday to get everything and if the lawyers advice Jan to give a DNA test, he will do.

 

[wolfix]

Of course, when the Equipe story broke, we saw Armstrong leaping to have a DNA test to incontrovertibly prove his innocence, didn't we? And Hamilton?

Lucky it wasn't Ferrari under the microscope - otherwise we'd see Hincapie, Landis, Leipheimer, Popovych and some other favourites getting found out, wouldn't we?

Sorry, but this whole thing makes me sick

All these threads are interesting. We have a scandal on our hands where there is actual proof of someone doping , not "I saw that and I am writing a book " without any proof. And these threads always lead back to the premise if JU was caught, LA is guilty.
JU's fans scream that no one but a doped up LA could have beat a JU every year. Year after year. Now, we have a trainload of allegations from authorities, [not people with a agenda] coming down the mountain straight at JU.. But you scream ,"If JU is guilty, then the peloton is !! JU is so innocent."
Let's take a moment and look back at JU's amazing alledgedly dope free career. And let's apply the logic that has been applied to LA.

JU's best years were with Riis. JU was unstoppable. He came onto the scene with a little boy smile and legs of thunder. The second coming of Eddy. Now what we do know is this. The following year after JU's two best years a car would be stopped at the border and it would be filled with drugs. The Festina scandal showed us that the peloton was doped to the gills. EPO would become a word all cycling fans would hear a lot about . But JU/Riis defeated those evil men the two years before. They had to be dope free because JU has a little boy smile. They were above it, but as Lim 's article showed, there was plenty of doubt concerning Riis's innocence. And we saw a down turn in JU's career. Still a good career, but not what he exhibited as his potential in the pre-Festina years.

So I ask myself, why can JU win the TDF and be dope free when the EPO use was at the height of it's existence?? And let's not talk about natural talent......

And I notice that the fans are screaming at the organizations that have brought these allegations. It was not the organizations that had the doping labs set up. It was not the organizations that forced the riders to participate. Fans are screaming the evidence is weak when the evidence has not been released yet to the general public. And the teams with the most to lose {TM/CSC} suspend their riders very quickly. And get as far away as far as they can from the riders in question. As bad as a marketing plan would be to keep these riders on , it would be suicide to suspend riders who later turn out to be innocent.

I heard this saying when I was young....... "When you point your finger at someone else, you have 3 fingers pointing back at you."

And now we get to se that in work as this scandal works itself out.

 

[thebluetrain]

great post wolf.

 

[tomkay]

And I notice that the fans are screaming at the organizations that have brought these allegations. It was not the organizations that had the doping labs set up. It was not the organizations that forced the riders to participate. Fans are screaming the evidence is weak when the evidence has not been released yet to the general public. And the teams with the most to lose {TM/CSC} suspend their riders very quickly. And get as far away as far as they can from the riders in question. As bad as a marketing plan would be to keep these riders on , it would be suicide to suspend riders who later turn out to be innocent.

I heard this saying when I was young....... "When you point your finger at someone else, you have 3 fingers pointing back at you."

And now we get to se that in work as this scandal works itself out.

One of the reasons teams drop their suspected riders that fast is team sponsorship. Ludwig had to be thinking about T-Mobile and whether they would continue to shell out the millions next year to keep the team going. That is their first priority: Keep the sponsor happy. Same thing applies to CSC. If you prolong this issue then the bad publicity remains and the sponsors will get angry and perhaps pull the plug on the team. This is what it all boils down to. It has nothing to do with being guilty or not.

 

[rejobako]

great post wolf.

Agreed. I'm still withholding judgment on Ullrich and the others because, even though Wolfix's logic is sensible, it remains for now based on circumstantial inferences.

Did anyone catch this quote from Georg Totschnig a couple of days ago, talking about Ullrich and his suspension?

"With Jan, it has affected one of my best friends in the scene. You could sit down to dinner with him and talk not just about cycling, but about everything. When I sat together with my wife Michi, him and and his girlfriend Sara, we talked about how his daughter Sarah was doing in kindergarten, when he would hold his next party at his house in Switzerland, and whether singer Udo Lindenberg would drop by. Lance Armstrong was different. He spoke the whole evening only about training, his saddle and the position of his handlebars. For him there was only cycling, and that's probably exactly why he won the Tour seven times."

http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2006/tour06/news/?id=/news/2006/jul06/jul01news2

I think Totschnig's comments shed a little light on why so many people (including me) feel an affection for Ullrich different from other cyclists. In many ways, he's just a guy, while Armstrong is a machine that we might be able to admire but never really relate to.

 

[wolfix]

I didn't really want to accuse JU. But the allegations that fans of LA have put up with for so many years and the logic used can come back around.

I do think it is likely that JU was involved back in 1997. {Because if Riis} I just have a hard time believing he is involved now. His results do not reflect a man who dopes to win.

 

[Ullefan]

All these threads are interesting. We have a scandal on our hands where there is actual proof of someone doping , not "I saw that and I am writing a book " without any proof. And these threads always lead back to the premise if JU was caught, LA is guilty.
JU's fans scream that no one but a doped up LA could have beat a JU every year. Year after year. Now, we have a trainload of allegations from authorities, [not people with a agenda] coming down the mountain straight at JU.. But you scream ,"If JU is guilty, then the peloton is !! JU is so innocent."
Let's take a moment and look back at JU's amazing alledgedly dope free career. And let's apply the logic that has been applied to LA.

JU's best years were with Riis. JU was unstoppable. He came onto the scene with a little boy smile and legs of thunder. The second coming of Eddy. Now what we do know is this. The following year after JU's two best years a car would be stopped at the border and it would be filled with drugs. The Festina scandal showed us that the peloton was doped to the gills. EPO would become a word all cycling fans would hear a lot about . But JU/Riis defeated those evil men the two years before. They had to be dope free because JU has a little boy smile. They were above it, but as Lim 's article showed, there was plenty of doubt concerning Riis's innocence. And we saw a down turn in JU's career. Still a good career, but not what he exhibited as his potential in the pre-Festina years.

So I ask myself, why can JU win the TDF and be dope free when the EPO use was at the height of it's existence?? And let's not talk about natural talent......

And I notice that the fans are screaming at the organizations that have brought these allegations. It was not the organizations that had the doping labs set up. It was not the organizations that forced the riders to participate. Fans are screaming the evidence is weak when the evidence has not been released yet to the general public. And the teams with the most to lose {TM/CSC} suspend their riders very quickly. And get as far away as far as they can from the riders in question. As bad as a marketing plan would be to keep these riders on , it would be suicide to suspend riders who later turn out to be innocent.

I heard this saying when I was young....... "When you point your finger at someone else, you have 3 fingers pointing back at you."

And now we get to se that in work as this scandal works itself out.

You're no different than others, you're a hypocrite. I can't be bothered pointing things out.

 

[thebluetrain]

You're no different than others, you're a hypocrite. I can't be bothered pointing things out.

Funny how the tables have turned over the course of a year. Wasnt it you taking shots at the US soccer team and saying they could use LA and Canseco the other day? Get used to it.

 

[wolfix]

You're no different than others, you're a hypocrite. I can't be bothered pointing things out.

How many times have I read on this forum that LA's fans {and I am one] have their heads in the sand?

How many times has it been written that Discovery is nothing but dopers?

They point out because LA goes to court to prove his innocence in a court of law with non-biased and rational people that LA hides behind the law. But now that JU states [And hasn;t yet} that he will do the same to prove his innocence, we have people yelling that it is proof of JU's innocence.

And almost every thread that explores the idea that the current allegations may have some substance behind them , the thread gets turned around to a "Discovery/LA dopes too."

The anti -LA fans love to read the French newspapers and believe every word. Or in case of the French newspapers they love to believe evey word that has not been ommitted. Speaking of French newspapers, I nominate WBT to do the TDF write-ups for the French newspaper. . We still would not get a biased opinion out of wbt, but he keep us laughing with his pointing out the obvious. wbt is so French.
But now that the papers are writing things about JU that come from civil authorities, the papers are false.

And I'm a hypocrite?

 

[Ullefan]

How many times have I read on this forum that LA's fans {and I am one] have their heads in the sand?

How many times has it been written that Discovery is nothing but dopers?

They point out because LA goes to court to prove his innocence in a court of law with non-biased and rational people that LA hides behind the law. But now that JU states [And hasn;t yet} that he will do the same to prove his innocence, we have people yelling that it is proof of JU's innocence.

And almost every thread that explores the idea that the current allegations may have some substance behind them , the thread gets turned around to a "Discovery/LA dopes too."

The anti -LA fans love to read the French newspapers and believe every word. Or in case of the French newspapers they love to believe evey word that has not been ommitted. Speaking of French newspapers, I nominate WBT to do the TDF write-ups for the French newspaper. . We still would not get a biased opinion out of wbt, but he keep us laughing with his pointing out the obvious. wbt is so French.
But now that the papers are writing things about JU that come from civil authorities, the papers are false.

And I'm a hypocrite?

You state that JU has a "trainload" of allegations, yet LA only had "people with an agenda." Can I say, that's an awful lot of people with an "agenda", Dr Steffen, emma O'reily, mike anderson, lemond, Jongen, L'equipe, Walsh, etc. But I will not go down that road, for it has already been discussed umpteen times, I merely wanted to point out your hypocracy. From what I know of myself, and what i've read, there is no-one who is claiming that these allegations coming out of El Pais and elsewhere are false and are a "witchhunt". We all acknowledge, as painful as it may be, that the likelyhood is JU and others have cheated us. But we allow the possibility that JU is innocent, so therefore we do not cast stones yet. You however, who has defended LA over and over, resort to the same behaviour that others have inflicted upon you, which makes you no better. In fact it makes you a hypocrite. You try to disguise it by typing long posts which show your cycling knowledge, with the premise that you cannot exhibit the same primorial behaviour. Speaking of three fingers, what happens when the next doping ring is uncovered, be careful what you wish for.