[ire]

They just posted this on the text updates on velonews.com, I thought it was funny:

Reuters reported this morning that Saunier Duval's Riccardo Ricco tried to avoid doping testers. According to French Anti-Doping Agency, Ricco tested positive for EPO after the stage 4 - despite trying to make a run for it. "When he saw that he was to be tested, he escaped," AFLD President Pierre Bordry told reporters before the 16th stage. "But he was caught by the stewards between two cars. We then told him that as he had tried to avoid the test, he would be tested every day." Ricco was thrown out of the race by ASO, and then fired from his team.

 

[Cant Climb]

http://jpineau.blogs.velomagazine.fr/

Rough translation of some of paragraph 4

"...I have some Italian friends who raced against him aged 15. They told me he was doping then, and even showed them how he did it... When you are up to your neck in it like him, the least you should do is keep your mouth shut...I am happy that he's spending the night in a cell. He thought he was a star, he was taking the p### out of us."

 

[ire]

Damn! Doping at 15? Thats crazy....the dope I had at 15 didn't increase performance

 

[Secret Squirrel]

Damn! Doping at 15? Thats crazy....the dope I had at 15 didn't increase performance

mine just made me all twitchy n' sh*t...

 

[sanjuro]

You Better Run! You Better Hide!
You better leave from my sight! Yeah!

 

[jaydee]

Ricky Riccardo - Ex Pro Bike Rider. He's got some splainin' to do.

 

[ire]

looks like Scott will step up and takeover the team....maybe they'll sue Ricco as well, I would try

 

[ire]

He admits to doping, at least he had the guts to own up to it
http://tour-de-france.velonews.com/article/81064/

The Italian ANSA news agency has reported that cyclist Ricardo Riccò, who tested positive for a new form of EPO, following the 4th stage of the Tour de France, has admitted to having doped in preparation for the French tour.

According to ANSA, the former Saunier Duval rider made the admission at a hearing before the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) on Wednesday.

The 24-year-old Ricco, who won two stages at the Tour before exiting the race for testing positive for a new product known as Continuous Erythropoietin Receptor Activator (CERA), was called before a CONI panel on Wednesday.

"Speaking to the anti-doping prosecutor, I took full responsibility for my actions,” Riccò told ANSA. “Prior to the Tour, I made a mistake; I took a product that everyone was talking about.”

Riccò said he made the decision to dope independently and took the drug outside of the auspices of his team.

Riccò said the "the mistake is only mine" and that he made the admission to relieve himself of a "huge burden."

Riccò learned of the positive before the Tour’s 12th stage and subsequently questioned by French police and could face criminal charges in France for possessing and using a “poisonous substance,” under France’s tough new sports doping laws.

Riccò was the third rider to test positive for the drug at this year’s Tour after Spanish riders Moises Duenas (Barloworld) and Manuel Beltran (Liquigas) also tested positive for CERA. Unlike the Liquigas and Barloworld teams, Riccò’s Saunier Duval team withdrew from the race, raising questions about the winning performance by the squad’s Leonardo Piepoli on the Tour’s 10th stage.

Both Riccò and Piepoli were fired by the team within a day of the positive test. The French Anti-Doping Agency has not yet released test results for Piepoli.

Since the Riccò controversy, the team’s title sponsor has withdrawn from the sport but the squad will continue to operate under the joint sponsorship of the Scott-USA bicycle company and a marketing consortium called American Beef.

 

[Secret Squirrel]

Since the Riccò controversy, the team’s title sponsor has withdrawn from the sport but the squad will continue to operate under the joint sponsorship of the Scott-USA bicycle company and a marketing consortium called American Beef.

 

[BadDNA]

Since the Riccò controversy, the team’s title sponsor has withdrawn from the sport but the squad will continue to operate under the joint sponsorship of the Scott-USA bicycle company and a marketing consortium called American Beef.

So now instead of EPO, they'll be doping with rBGH?

 

[reflux]

So now instead of EPO, they'll be doping with rBGH?

PETA will show up in force at each race to protest cycling and its ties to animal cruelty.