This evening in Salzburg: As they don't find any new evidence the teams (especially T-Mobile and Gerolsteiner) will start a new strategy. They threaten not to start at the Tour de France if Ullrich and Basso start. The code of conduct which they (the Pro-Tour teams) wanted to use untill the end of the season will now be for the whole year 2007. McQuaid said to German daily Süddeutsche: "They cannot start in 2007, not with these facts, somebody like Ullrich must be without doubts."

team Lamonta will be stocked!

Ullrich
Basso
Hondo
Davis
Jaksche
Botero
Mancebo
Gutierrez
Valverde

VALVERDE!!! Will the teams sit back and not push for a closer inspection of the documents. Valv/Piti is obviously Valverde but the Spanish authorities deny it in the most naitonal of circumstances.

This is a new level of hipocrasy. For lack of an emoticon: thumbs DOWN

even cyclists who face a mountain of circumstantial evidence deserve due process, a way to know the rules, confront the evidence, and be judged impartially.

So the rule is that they are convicted punished and left with NO means to support themselves? This is just 100% bull*&^&! I would but some generalized comment about how I think the European legal systems needs to work but I do not want to be like some others on this site. I really think this is unfair if all they have is circumstantial evidence.

There is no judge i Europe who will accept this, they don't want a kind of UCI banana republic (and made that pretty clear in the Hondo case).
Either they are punished with proof or they will walk (ride)

The thing is that the Tour and the Pro-Tour are private parties, they can pretty much invite whoever they want. Not being welcome is not the same as being punished and he UCI can deny that they are being denied a livelihood as there are teams not subject to the Pro-Tour rules. The Tour is pretty much untouchable about who they invite, but there could be challenges to exclusion from the Pro-Tour if the cases against them are thrown out for lack of evidence.

Sounds like this is all turning into a big mess. I guess that's the problem when you are dealing with non-analytical cases across multiple judiciary bodies. Add in that the Spainish authorities are probably not going to spend a lot of time on who did what etc (probably not a priority and amybe shouldn't be).

I get the feeling the individual cycling federations are a little reluctant to get into protracted legal battles over non-analytical findings.
I suspect without Fuentes co-operation there will be little progress- although the movememnts of teams like T-mobile and maybe CSC instituting internal controls is progress.

Let me ask this rhetorically,
How would feel if Ullrich, Basso and Mancebo are allowed to start the tour next year?

So long as they were subjected to regular random tests and passed them all, let them.

Velonews reports that Mancebo could return to AGR2 next year.

http://www.velonews.com/race/int/articles/10934.0.html

I have nothing personal against Mancebo (except that he is likely a doper) but despite the fact that he announced his retirement in the wake of the Puerto investigation he now realises that everyone is likely to get off so why shouldn't he return. Can't blame him.

It is starting to look like OP is a wasted opportunity to clean out some of the major cheaters - along the same lines as Maddogs post.

I think all this mess is NOT helped by a messy current Code of Ethics and a disjoint cacophony of the Code interpretations by the various (big and small) owners of pro-cycling pie...

RH - excellent point. One thing that makes the current doping testing and system unpalatable even to those who support efforts to get doping out of cycling is that justice requires equal treatment of all. None in the peloton are in a position to really say so, but I suspect this is the single biggest obstacle to support from the peloton more broadly. There is an objection to laying down arms on one side, until there is confidence that the system will, without exception, force laying down of arms from all others, all being taken back to riding without "help" equally. Similarly, there is an objection to the situation where a number of contestants are all doping, but only one, seemingly randomly, is singled out, "caught" and disqualified. Reading between the lines, the message seems to be, whatever cycling decides, whatever it does, it must be CONSISTENT in application.

How to devise a system that ensures that consistency is the real question, not the endless debate about which guys were doping in the last race. It is ironic, but I believe cyclists, like most of us, are willing to accept some intrusion on privacy, endure certain discomforts and annoyances of regulation, so long as they believe is actually accomplishing the end. I don't think the majority in the pro peloton seem to chafe against the doping rules and testing because they are "pro-doping," but rather because they see all of the hassle and hubbub as pointlessly ineffective and unjust in the current uneven, unequal application.

Yes that's it. You've hit the nail on the head. And in the best of all world the consistency would apply to all other types of sport as well.

Mancebo said about a week after his decision that he wouldn't retire if he wouldn't get a suspension. So this wasn't really new.

"Mancebo said about a week after his decision that he wouldn't retire if he wouldn't get a suspension. So this wasn't really new."

But apparently he was so sure that he would get suspended that he went ahead and retired at the time. In an age when guys like Tyler and Roberto and Floyd vigorously assert their innocence in the face of positives, what does that tell you about how likely it was that Paco was guilty? And if he was, for sure a lot of others were.

It doesn't tell me anything.

Retiring instead of asserting your innocence in any way, whilst being a top 10 GT rider doesn't tell you anything? Let's just say it's not the action of a person who thinks they are innocent...in any type of accusation.