Movistar has cancelled today’s planned presentation in Madrid of its ‘new’ star signing for the 2012 season, former world number one Alejandro Valverde, after the UCI stepped in, pointing out that he’s still serving out a two-year ban for doping.
Valverde rode for the same team in its previous incarnation as Caisse d’Epargne, and throughout his suspension has continued to train with some of the team's riders – Xavier Tondo, who had joined Movistar in 2011, was heading out for a training ride with him when he was killed after becoming trapped between his car and garage door last May.
In a statement on its website, Movistar confirmed that the UCI had forbidden it to unveil Valverde “by virtue of an interpretation of international rules with which we are in profound disagreement,” adding that it had been obliged to comply as a result of potential sanctions.
The 31-year-old was handed a two-year ban in May 2010, backdated to 1 January of that year, following a protracted legal process that had begun when the 2008 Tour de France, in which he was riding, made a brief detour into Italy.
Italian authorities established that a sample taken from the cyclist at that time was a DNA match for blood contained in a bag seized during Operacion Puerto in Spain in 2006, labelled ‘Valv.Piti’ – Piti apparently being the name of Valverde’s dog, although he has denied that.
In May 2009, he was banned from competing in Italy for two years, and in May 2010, the Court of Arbitration for Sport, at the request of the UCI and WADA, gave him a two year worldwide ban, effective from 1 January 2010. He was stripped of results obtained in the opening months of the 2010 season, but allowed to keep his 2009 Vuelta title.
In January this year, Valverde’s appeal to the Supreme Court of Switzerland, where WADA was based, failed. In short, he had argued that evidence gathered in an investigation in one jurisdiction, Spain, could not be introduced in a separate jurisdiction.
Valverde ended the both the 2006 and 2008 seasons as winner of the UCI ProTour, now replaced by the world ranking. In 2009, he took the overall victory in the Vuelta as well as the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré, which he had also won in 2008. His other major wins include Liege-Bastogne-Liege, the Fleche Wallonne and the Clasica de San Sebastian.
He remains the only Spanish cyclist to have been formally sanctioned as a result of Operacion Puerto, although it should be noted that Spain’s own national federation, the RFEC, had no involvement in the chain of events that led to his ban.
So the collective noun for a group of cyclists is 'a hoard'?
Bro needs to be in primary position.
To answer your question, yes you can sometimes feel the difference. Built a set of wheels for a friend and he installed them with new lightweight...
Cycling infrastructure does not force drivers to break the law, drivers are the reason they break the law, no one else.
Ah but taking pictures of things to defy the man (avoid a fine) is righteous. Taking pictures of people to grass on them to the cops (perhaps...
As a woman, this works great for me! My chain broke once, and a kind guy stopped with a chain breaker and sorted it all out for me. We stopped at a...
Same. I also have gone through a bunch of their tyres, and only the extralight disappointed (torn sidewall) but the standards are fantastic....
thanks for the ideas....
Indeed - but it's no more inconsistent than our current road design - very often UK high streets are "for shopping" and also a busy through route....
If you ask the world's leading economic commentators how many people have been rescued from abject poverty by capitalism the average answer would...