Berasategui to end career

By Monika Prell

After only two seasons as professional cyclist, Antonio Berasategui will quit cycling. The 28 year-old cyclist, born in Araia (Alava), became a pro in 2005 with team Kaiku. He can be seen as another victim of Operación Puerto, as only one of the four Spanish teams that lost their sponsors (Kaiku, Comunitat Valenciana, Astana and 3 Molinos), only one was newly created (Karpin - Galicia).

Berasategui, who started with cycling at the age of ten years in the cycling school of his village, and who won seven races in his time as amateur, commented to the Spanish newspaper El Correo, that "it was something that could happen because of the situation in this little world," and that he has made himself "familiar to this idea for a while already." Further he assumed that he was aware of the fact that Operación Puerto "in a certain way has complicated everything" and that he was "not the only cyclist who has to give up cycling ahead of time."