More Giro shocks still to come
Biological warfare, you’d be forgiven for calling it. A no-holds-barred ‘Apocalypse Now’ of blood boosters and stimulants. This is the disturbing portrait of professional cycling being painted by professor Dario D’Ottavio, the chemical expert advising the Florentine doping inquest ordered after police raids at the 2001 Giro d'Italia.
The first results of D’Ottavio’s painstaking analyses of the 300-plus exhibits seized at San Remo last June surpass even the most gloomy expectations; they have unearthed quantities of illicitly acquired substances worthy of a minor Colombian cartel.
D’Ottavio’s first findings have been made known by Italian journalist Eugenio Capodacqua. On his website
www.sportpro.it Capodacqua reports that the seizures made in San Remo intercepted what he calls a ‘mobile hospital,’ abundantly stocked with caffeine and corticoids, human growth hormone and testosterone, plus the new, in-vogue evil, insulin.
Alongside these were a stimulant of follicular, and ovular development in women, urofllitrophin; four separate samples of the asthma antidote-cum-stimulant salbutamol; the liquid labelled Hemassist, and a whole lorry-load of other products either explicitly banned by the UCI, or subject to tight restrictions and requiring valid, pre-signed certification.
Added to this, is a blow-by-blow inventory of all products confiscated from selected high-profile athletes. Jan Ullrich, Dario Frigo and Giuseppe Di Grande are all singled out. In the case of Ullrich however, it’s important to know that he was apparently in possession of a number of products requiring medical justification, and it’s expected that a formal alibi will shortly be forthcoming.
Frigo, though, is attributed with a discarded syringe containing human growth hormone, while Di Grande, so Capodacqua claims, will soon be asked to explain why his personal stash contained no less that five prohibited drugs including a blood diluter, insulin and ovular stimulant, urofilitrophin. Frigo is already serving a six-month ban on the basis of his earlier confessions, though this could now be extended beyond the original expiry date of March on the strength of the HGH scoop. For the faded, former prodigy Di Grande, meanwhile, a lengthy sentence could also await.
In the Italian Olympic Committee’s ongoing questioning of riders, masseurs and other implicated parties, Marco Pantani is another big fish caught in the net. Pantani’s ditched masseur Roberto Pregnolato has been interrogated by judge Luigi Bocciolini in Florence, and contrary to what was first believed, it seems possible that the Pirate himself could face fresh "sporting fraud" accusations which could result in a three month to three year prison sentence. On this occasion charges would relate to offences committed since the passing of an Italian constitutional law on doping, unlike in the Torino trial which absolved Pantani late last year.
According to Capodacqua, although Pantani had been in the clear in the aftermath of the Giro raids, his involvement relates to an earlier drop-in by the police at Montecatini Terme. It was here, say reports, just days prior to the infamous scenes in San Remo, that a syringe suspected to contain insulin was discovered in Pantani’s hotel room.
These revelations are bound to increase on UCI president Hein Verbruggen to speed research into tests to detect human growth hormone, insulin and above all, Nesp, all currently untraceable.
Although the NAS left San Remo with renewed faith in the eradication of EPO, it’s souped-up successor, Nesp, according to one investigator, may already have been in use at the Giro: "Our theory is that it comes from the outside: they arrive, do the injection, and then they disappear," revealed the source.
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Cosa ti piacerebbe fare dopo l’agonismo?
Cipollini: «Ritirarmi in Sudafrica, aprire una vineria, una scuola di ciclismo, e stare lì, in mezzo alla natura».
- na super 
wie kann man sich da noch rausreden 
kann aber auch verstehen wenn's dir zu viel arbeit ist
