Berlin in January and spring feels a million miles away. Low cloud suffuses the city from Alexanderplatz to the Brandenburg Gate, Unter den Linden is flanked by icy stacks of sludge and the dead leaves of the Tiergarten are shrouded in a crisp white layer of snow.

Across the road from the wintry municipal park, however, there is a hint of warmer days. The Giant-Alpecin team presentation has drawn to a close in the Italian Embassy, and the boys of summer (and spring) are now earnestly outlining their ambitions for the year ahead to the waiting press.

One by one, riders quietly slip away from the melee, their duties to sponsors fulfilled, but almost three hours after the conclusion of the ceremony, John Degenkolb is still dressed in his team kit, holding court on a couch in his booming voice.

Winner of Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix in 2015, Degenkolb received Germany’s Rider of the Year award during the presentation and has been fielding questions from an expectant home press since the lights went up, but he betrays no sign of irritation when asked to go through the process all over again for a small group of international reporters.

“A day like this is very busy and very exhausting but I think it’s also necessary. It’s just a part of the sport,” Degenkolb says of the additional demands brought about by last year’s success and by being the German star of the lone German WorldTour team.

Those victories on the Via Roma and the Roubaix velodrome were Degenkolb’s first in Monument classics, and he is aware that for the rest of his career, external expectations have been irrevocably recalibrated. As Fabian Cancellara or Tom Boonen could doubtless tell him, from now on any Spring campaign that passes without a Monument victory will, rightly or wrongly, be deemed something of a failure, but Degenkolb appears unfazed by the pressure.

“The fact that you start with number 1 on your back means it will be different than before but I wasn’t an unknown name before last year either – there were some guys watching me – so the situation isn’t so different,” Degenkolb says, having dismissed out of hand the notion that 2015 might have sated his appetite in the Classics: “With these kind of victories, you now know what the sacrifices are worth, so it gives me a big boost to go and be on an even better level in the classics this year.”

The old and the new

With both Boonen and Cancellara absent through injury, 2015 appeared to mark a changing of the guard in the Spring Classics, as Degenkolb and Tour of Flanders winner Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) stepped confidently into the vacuum. Still only 27 and 28 years old, respectively, the pair have the potential to dominate on the cobbles to the end of the decade and beyond. Boonen and Cancellara will undoubtedly rage against the dying of the light this April, but Degenkolb suggests Kristoff is likely to provide the stiffest opposition once again.

“Fabian and Tom are very inspiring for me. It’s great to see what these guys have achieved, and it shows also with hard work and constant work you can still be successful on the highest level when you are over thirty. That’s my goal, too, to become a champion as they are one day,” Degenkolb says.

“But the biggest contender for the future is Alexander Kristoff, I think. Peter Sagan, of course, is an outstanding athlete but he also still needs to prove in the Classics season that he can win the big races. Of course he won the world championships, no question, but so far he hasn’t won a classic yet.”

Not that Degenkolb envisages Flanders or Roubaix as being simply a prize fight against his fellow heavyweight Kristoff. Unlike the past decade, where Boonen, Cancellara and their teams have tended to dictate terms on the pavé, there is arguably a wider spread of genuine contenders backed by solid teams. To the aforementioned rivals, he adds the names of Greg Van Avermaet and Sep Vanmarcke.

“I don’t think we [Giant-Alpecin] need to stress ourselves to be the team that has to do all the work in the classics,” he says. “There are really a lot of big names for the classics season and the pressure will be divided in the end. I’m really optimistic about that.”

Degenkolb’s build-up to the classics will see him start his campaign at the Dubai Tour and Tour of Qatar, throttle back for a couple of weeks of endurance training – “You need to refuel your batteries,” he explains – before a final blow-out at Paris-Nice. From there until the second Sunday in April, the schedule is simple. Monument, rinse, repeat.

“I’ll try to be on 100 percent from San Remo to Roubaix,” he says, dismissing the idea that he was prioritising the Tour of Flanders above all other races this spring. “The nice thing is that you have three monuments and all three of them have completely different characters.”

Kittel

On the corresponding morning in Berlin year ago, Degenkolb had a foil at Giant-Alpecin’s pre-season media day in the shape of Marcel Kittel, but after a listless and troubled 2015 campaign, the sprinter rescinded his contract and left for pastures new at Etixx-QuickStep.

The evening before the presentation, a representative from sponsor Alpecin, guardedly conceded that the loss of the immaculately coiffured Kittel was a disappointment for the German shampoo manufacturer, but insisted it had been offset by the exploits of Degenkolb in the spring, Simon Geschke at the Tour and Tom Dumoulin at the Vuelta a España.

While the departure of Kittel and number two sprinter Luka Mezgec means that Degenkolb will be the team’s nominal fast man at the Tour de France (as indeed he already was in 2015), in real terms, with Warren Barguil on hand, setting up bunch sprints is no longer the raison d’être for Giant-Alpecin in July: Degenkolb will seek his maiden Tour stage win on the more selective sprint days.

“On the sporting level, it’s doesn’t really change anything,” Degenkolb says of Kittel’s transfer. “In terms of friendship, of course, it’s not nice not to have him on the team anymore. I was always good friends with him and I’m still good friends with him.

“We will have some nice sprints against each other now, I think, and that brings up some memories from the past. We first sprinted against each other when we were 15 or 16. Then as juniors we raced together, I went to his club and at that time, I was more of a sprinter than he was. But he had the time trial power and was double world champion in time trialling.”

Regardless of where they lock horns early in 2016, the former teammates will look to row in the same direction at the World Championships road race in Doha. On the pan flat parcours, Germany appear to have a surfeit of options, with Degenkolb, Kittel and André Greipel all potential winners.

“We can definitely fit altogether in one team and as long as we are honest with each other and work for each other, there is no problem,” Degenkolb says. “I had the opportunity and the honour to be captain in Richmond. If it’s different in Doha, and we go for André or Marcel, for example, I have absolutely no problem to give 100 percent for them.”

By then, the thorny matter of Degenkolb’s own future should be resolved. His contract with Giant-Alpecin expires at the end of 2016 and as he reaches his prime, his next payday will likely be the biggest of his career. Certainly, the combination cycling’s gradual restoration in his native Germany – Europe’s largest economy – and his uncomplicated ease in the spotlight means that Degenkolb should have no shortage of interested suitors among the sport’s largest sponsors. Asked if he is likely to stay put at Giant-Alpecin, Degenkolb plays a relatively straight bat.

“Good question! If I knew that answer so easily I would have signed something already. But right now there is not an agreement yet. We have really good conversations and talks and meetings and everything but it’s not decided yet. We’re both looking at it,” he says. “I think it’s not influencing my performance and preparation now. And we’re also still at a time of year where we don’t need to worry. It’s still very early and there will be a decision in the next months.”

And with that, Degenkolb is ushered away to squeeze in one last photo shoot before a quick dash to Tegel airport to catch a flight south to Giant-Alpecin’s pre-season training on the Costa Blanca. Spring draws a little closer.

Lance Armstrong can be subjected to a lawsuit from a second insurance company seeking to recoup bonuses paid to the Texan during his Tour de France reign.

According to the Associated Press, Travis County judge Darlene Byrne denied a request to dismiss a $3 million suit from Acceptance Insurance Holdings, which was contracted to pay Armstrong's bonuses for his now-disqualified victories in the 1999, 2000 and 2001 Tours de France.

Armstrong's attorneys argued that any statute of limitations on breach of contract or fraud expired in 2011, but AIH argued that the timing only started when Armstrong publicly admitted to doping in January of this year.

With that ruling, Mark Kincaid, the attorney for AIH said he will move to question Armstrong under oath.

"Lance Armstrong would be the number one witness," Kincaid said to AP.

The case of AIH is similar to that of SCA Promotions with one exception: SCA Promotions went after Armstrong in 2005 after allegations of doping were levelled against him by journalist David Walsh and his L.A. Confidentiel author Pierre Ballester, and the two sides settled out of court.

While it is still to be decided whether the settlement can be undone, a point which Armstrong's attorneys argue is not possible under Texas law, the suit from AIH has no such issues.

"That's an obstacle they have to overcome that we don't," Kincaid said.

The $3 million suit is just a drop in the bucket of actions against Armstrong since the US Anti Doping Agency successfully stripped him of all seven Tour titles following a lengthy investigation into doping on his teams. The US Federal government is seeking to recoup the funds provided by the U.S. Postal Service and can impose penalties of more than $100 million.

Provisionally suspended rider Mauro Santambrogio will reportedly request for a B-sample analysis to be undertaken after returning a positive control for Erythropoietin (EPO) on the opening day at the Giro d'Italia. The Vini Fantini rider won a snowy Stage 14 ahead of Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) and finished ninth-overall after dropping down the standings in the final week.

"I can only say that I am in disbelief about what has happened and will request the counter analysis as soon as possible," Santambrogio told Ansa.it.

Santambrogio had made what appeared a dramatic improvement this season after spending the past three seasons as a domestic with BMC Racing. He begun his 2013 campaign with a string of strong results including third at the Trofeo Laigueglia, fifth at GP Citta di Camaiore, victory in the one-day GP Industria & Artigianato before heading for his Giro warm-up at the Giro del Trentino - where he finished second-overall.

The 28-year-old has been provisionally suspended by the UCI and been fired by his Vini Fantini team. His positive test comes after Danilo Di Luca's failed out-of-competition test was announced shortly after the completion of the three-week race.

In light of the two doping positives the future of the 'fluro' squad appears to be on the brink of collapse, with Vini Fantini manager expressing his absolute frustration.

"Everything’s finished, the whole project is finished", he told Tuttobiciweb.it.

Vini Fantini's status for upcoming RCS Sport races is yet to be determined by Giro race manager Michele Acquarone. The end of year WorldTour race Giro di Lombardia is one such invite that will now be put into question.

The findings of Nicki Vance's external review of the policies, procedures as well as riders and staff at Orica GreenEdge has concluded with the Australian ProTeam releasing a summary of the findings. An official team statement in regard to the findings is expected with the coming days. 

The main objectives of the 'Vance Review' were to confirm the team's standing in the fight against doping in professional cycling along with an assessment of the protocols and recruitment practices of the sole Australian WorldTour squad. Following the report is a list of recommendations with Vance charged with overseeing the implementation of any such changes.

Vance outlined a clear series of guidelines for riders and staff who come forth to admit or have admitted to doping in the past. Following the interviews of the men's and women's teams, excluding Daniel Teklehaimanot who "was unavailable during the interview time" and the 21 staff members, were no further admissions to use of doping substances in the past. Vance noted that one particular limitation of the interview process was the swift and apparent 'zero-tolerance' stance taken with Matt White, who stepped down from his role after admitting to doping and subsequently could have led to some riders holding back from admissions to making the wrong choices in the past.

"This is not to say that anyone necessarily had something to hide, however, if they had doped or assisted others to dope in the past they would most likely have remained silent," wrote Vance in her Anti-Doping Review Report.

One of the most publicly discussed suggestions is for Matt White to be reinstated into his former role as sports director and given his six-month back-dated suspension is now finished, he is technically able to do so. Vance detailed a specific approach that should be taken in terms of past doping substance use and also outlined ways in which they could be handled dependant on the timing of the actual anti-doping violation and when or if that rider/staff member came forth with information relating to an infraction.

"Consistent with the advised general approach to past doping offences/admissions and the conditions already outlined it is recommended that Matt White have his position with OGE reinstated once any ASADA-imposed sanction is completed."

Neil Stephens, in accordance with Vance's general recommendations for past doping offences should receive no penalty or suspension from the team given the dates of his apparent use of EPO – which he did so unknowingly. The difference between White and Stephens' case is essentially due to the former Festina rider unknowingly using a banned substance prior to 1 July 2005 – in which "no suspension or workplace penalty be imposed".

The report continues by suggesting the team should further promote itself as a "clean" team and that all new staff and riders be put through a more specific range of questions relating to anti-doping and to ensure that all team members are fully informed of their rights and responsibilities regarding anti-doping clauses in contracts. This is extremely pertinent given Gerry Ryan's apparent lack of information regarding Stephens' past admissions.

Effective management of riders whereabouts forms is also to be implemented to ensure that all team members complete their updates in a timely manner so as to avoid any missed tests and possible sanctions for Wherabouts violations. If a particular rider has difficulty in managing this responsibility, the team should ensure they are given all the appropriate tools and knowledge to stay up to date.

A review of supplement usage should also be completed with the team doctors assembling to discuss, in details, the varying views that exist in regard to supplementation and to ensure that only permitted supplements be given to team riders. Following this should be a controlled supply of team-acquired supplements so that riders and or staff do not have to seek outside purchase where the exact contents of a supplement cannot be controlled.

In addition the Vance Report suggests its findings should be passed onto the UCI with a longer list of recommendations to help clean up the sport and ensure that public faith can be restored in the sport. Findings and feedback should also be discussed with the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority to improve policies and procedures relating to the Whereabouts system along with more random testing at all levels of the sport for men and women; Continental and Professional Continental.

Findings and continued support should also be included in any talks with the Movement for Credible Cycling, Mouvement pour un Cyclisme Crédible (MPCC).

The summary report can be found here.

Russian sprinter Denis Galimzyanov has received a two-year ban after testing positive for EPO and admitting to doping. The former Katusha rider tested positive in an out-of-competition control on March 22.

Galimzyanov's ban was dated from April 13, 2012 when he was provisionally suspended by the UCI.

The 25-year-old winner of the 2011 Paris - Bruxelles and the Tour of Beijing points classification admitted to doping shortly after his positive test was announced, taking care to absolve his team of any responsibility. 

“I would like to draw A PARTICULAR ATTENTION for that fact that Katusha Team has nothing to do with what happened,” he wrote in April. “No team member knew and could know about what I did. It was my personal decision and my responsibility.”

Katusha was recently denied its WorldTour license despite being the number two-ranked team in the 2012 UCI WorldTour standings.

Tyler Hamilton's autobiography will detail drug use between him and that of US Postal teammate Lance Armstrong. The former rider also claims that he was introduced to Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes by Bjarne Riis when he left US Postal for Team CSC in 2002.

Titled 'The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs', the expose is co-written by Daniel Coyle who authored 'Lance Armstrong's War'. The news agency paid for an advanced copy of the book, scheduled for September 5 release.

According to AP, Hamilton's book goes over what the former cyclist revealed in his interview with the 60 Minutes program last May, and also his evidence provided to the federal criminal investigation into Armstrong and the US Postal team which came to a conclusion in February without charges being laid. Hamilton is said to be one of the key witnesses in the USADA investigation which charged Armstrong with doping and conspiracy.

A report in the New York Daily News, which has also obtained a copy of the book, details the unexpected meeting between Hamilton and Armstrong in an Aspen restaurant, shortly after the airing of the 60 Minutes segment. Hamilton writes:

"When you're on the witness stand, we are going to f---ing tear you apart," Armstrong is alleged to have said. "You are going to look like an f---ing idiot."

Hamilton also claims that once he began cooperating with the federal investigation, he believes his phones and emails were hacked.

Hamilton explains that his own drug use began before Armstrong joined the team in 1998 but that Armstrong provided him with EPO shortly before the 1999 Tour de France. Hamilton was with Armstrong at the latter's home in Nice, France at the time. He also details the doping plan for the team during the race, which he alleges took place with Armstrong's knowledge, which included a motorcyclist travelling behind the convoy with a thermos of EPO that would be given to the riders following the stage. Hamilton also says that team management encouraged and supervised the use of PEDs and that they were distributed in white lunch bags.

Before the 2000 Tour de France, Armstrong, Hamilton and another teammate Kevin Livingston went to Spain to have their blood drawn by Dr. Luis Garcia del Moral and Jose "Pepe" Martí. The blood bags were later returned to the rider's hotel rooms, taped to a wall above their beds where the contents were to be re-injected.

Last week, Armstrong announced he would not fight USADA's charges of doping and conspiracy which led to the agency stripping the American of his seven Tour de France titles which were included in the any and all competitive results obtained on and subsequent to August 1, 1998. Armstrong was also banned for life.

Gerard Vroomen has lamented the news that Dr. Michael Ashenden has resigned from his position an independent member of the UCI's panel of experts that reviews the blood passport data.

Both Vroomen and Ashenden have raised similar questions regarding the UCI’s biological passport in the past, with both gentlemen querying gaps in passport testing last year.

While Ashenden was just one member of an 8-strong panel, he was by far the most vocal in term of talking to the media. His departure - based over a confidentiality order - coupled with the fact that the UCI has failed to launch a single passport case in two-years has led Vroomen to suggest cycling has lost momentum in the fight against doping.

"It would be absolutely amazing if the passport was perfect the first time around, but the whole sport has taken a step back since 2009," Vroomen told Cyclingnews.

The former Cervelo TestTeam boss was referring to a period in 2008 to 2010 when a number of breakthroughs were made. Riders were caught at the 2008 with CERA EPO pumping through their blood and the first biological passport cases were launched. For the first time doping and cheats appeared to be on the back foot.

"2009 was a perfect year. Everybody was scared because of the CERA test and everything that happened in 2008 and 2009 was fantastic. Not everybody in the sport may have decided to push through at that time maybe some people were too scared about the negative publicity and that’s a shame because it was a golden opportunity to really, really push through.

Ashenden’s move has left Vroomen wondering where the sport is heading.

"It’s sad. If you want to have a believable anti-doping programme then you need to be able to accept criticism and be able to improve it. Not pretend it’s perfect.

"Over time you have a worse system because you’re not capable of accepting criticism. Even if the passport was perfect right now it would still need improvement in order to stay perfect in the future. You need criticism in order to keep it in shape. I don’t know how good or not it is. I know there are gaps in testing for certain riders which is not good, but they’re nowhere near like they are in sports like tennis. It’s not like we need to wait a year and half to test someone."

Despite all this Vroomen, who has not been directly involved with a team for almost a year, believes that the sport is still in a better state than 10 years ago, when the biological passport was merely a pipe dream. And while much of the passport’s momentum is down to the UCI, Vroomen does acknowledge that a collection of bodies and organisations shoulder the responsibility.

"I still think we’re much better off in the sport than we were ten years ago but maybe it could have been a little bit better if some people hadn’t taken their eye off the ball. To be honest, it’s probably a combination of all sorts. It’s easy to say UCI, UCI, UCI but I don’t think that at all. It’s a combination of races, teams, federations to solve these problems.. It’s not something the UCI can solve as the others sit back and relax."

Everyone has a favourite Jan Ullrich story. Mine comes from the 2005 Tour de France, which represented Ullrich’s last chance to beat his nemesis, Lance Armstrong.

On the day before the Tour started Armstrong appeared for his press conference. He arrived like a film star or world leader, in a cocoon of men who might have been bodyguards and who anxiously scanned the room. It was pure theatre, with a hint of menace. And it all reinforced the Armstrong aura.

When Ullrich arrived for his press conference he shuffled in wearing a track suit, looking a little dishevelled. And he was sporting a black eye. Earlier that day he had been out training, riding behind one of the T-Mobile team cars, when it suddenly braked, and Ullrich slammed into the rear window.

What happened the next day was, in hindsight, inevitable. Armstrong started behind Ullrich in the opening time trial and humiliated him by catching him. The Tour was effectively over for Ullrich when it had barely started.

And that was his last shot. The following year, with Armstrong gone and the race wide open, he appeared in Strasbourg as the favourite, but never made it to the start line, having been bundled out of the city when his name was linked to Operacion Puerto, the blood doping investigation that centred on a Madrid clinic run by Dr Eufemiano Fuentes.

Last week, almost six years later, that episode finally came to a conclusion, with Ullrich, who retired five years ago, stripped of his results from 2005/06 and handed a meaningless two-year ban by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Ullrich accepted the sanction and admitted he’d had contact with Fuentes. “I know that this was a big mistake, which I regret very much,” said Ullrich after the ruling.

Athletes often refer to their doping as a “mistake”, though you suspect they mean that their mistake was to be caught. It’s a bit of a stretch to describe making numerous trips to Madrid to meet Dr Fuentes, leaving blood stored in nine bags, and transferring €80,000 into the doctor’s bank account, as a ‘mistake.’

But Ullrich did something quite unusual: he apologised. “I would like to sincerely apologise for this behaviour - I’m very sorry.” He added: “In retrospect I would act differently in some situations during my career.”

Despite the conclusive proof that Ullrich doped, condemnation of him has been muted. Many cycling fans are ambivalent, and some appear sympathetic. It is a response that stands in stark contrast to the feelings stirred up by the more divisive Armstrong. That might be partly because Ullrich was regularly beaten by Armstrong: he was more fragile, more vulnerable (he rode into the back of team cars the day before the Tour); more human.

But it might also owe to a deeper understanding of his circumstances and the context in which he found himself. And, more superficially, to an appreciation of his talent, even the simple aesthetic pleasure of watching Ullrich ride a bike. At his peak, he represented the perfect marriage of grace and power: he had the style of Contador, the strength of Cancellara, and the musculature of the Incredible Hulk.

Ullrich grew up in East Germany and, from the moment he won the 1993 world amateur road race title at the age of 19, it was clear that he was a phenomenon. He seemed to confirm that in 1996 when, in his first Tour, he finished second. The following year he won and most predicted he would go on to dominate for the next decade.

Then along came Armstrong.

Ullrich became a ‘victim’ of the Armstrong era. But he might also be considered a victim of the EPO era. Most agree that this drug dominated and distorted the sport during the decade that Ullrich was at or near the top. It makes any fair assessment of his career impossible. Was he a product of the era, or a victim of it? Or both?

Whatever: it seems a bit rich of the UCI, cycling’s governing body, to have pursued Ullrich with such vengeance when they presided over -- and, through their initial inaction, must take some responsibility for -- an era so blighted by EPO. Why go after Ullrich and ignore others?

It is a farce that is confirmed by a study of the updated results of the 2005 Tour. With Ullrich’s third-place finish now airbrushed from history, Francisco Mancebo steps up to the podium. That’s the same Mancebo who, like Ullrich, was forced out of the 2006 Tour when his name was linked to Operacion Puerto. In fact, of the revised top ten, eight riders have either tested positive, served a ban or been under investigation for doping.

This leads to one conclusion. The problem was not Jan Ullrich.

Perhaps that is why the judgement of Ullrich has not been accompanied by moral outrage. In fact, there has been precious little judgement of this confessed cheat.

On Twitter, Jonathan Vaughters, who raced during the same era, spoke for many when he applauded Ullrich for accepting the CAS ruling: “Hats off to Ullrich for taking a pragmatic stance. He was a huge talent caught in an era with an unbeatable drug. Not more, not less.”

Within the space constraints of a tweet, Vaughters seemed to acknowledge the talent that made Ullrich such a thrilling rider to watch, as well as the possibility that his talent was, in the end, not made but destroyed by the drugs that disfigured that toxic era.

In the wake of the news late last week that riders Arnaud Papillon and Miguel Agreda Rojas had independently sought out and used the banned performance-enhancing drug EPO, David Veilleux (Europcar) and with Louis Garneau have decided to publicly come out in defence of clean cycling.

In a prepared statement, Veilleux fired back at critics of the sport, and rejected the idea that doping is the only path to success in cycling.

"Today, I take part in high level competitions that I used to watch on video as a kid," said Veilleux. "I have gotten to this level with hard work, self-discipline and lots of determination.

"It has been possible for me, like others, to reach the professional level without risking my health, my life and that of people around me. I sincerely wish that the young people around me who want to become cycling racers do not let themselves be lured by a few individuals’ wrongdoing.

"To race cleanly and win is possible."

Garneau echoed the sentiments of Veilleux in a similarly impassioned statement.

"When the news about Agreda came out last Friday night, I was surprised and angry, but [for David and I] the Papillon and Agreda cases are exceptions."

"I want to ask parents and coaches to be ever vigilant with children and young adults. An athlete on drugs often isn’t very obvious. We must make people aware of the problem again and talk about it as much as needed. Most of all, we all have to work hand in hand to win this fight against the worldwide performance enhancing drugs problem."

A clear approach for the future

Garneau also coupled his words with a strategy to stamp out and discourage future doping practices within his organisation. Among the key steps to be implemented by Garneau's teams in 2012 are to:

- Instil an anti-doping culture and help educate them accordingly to reject the idea of cheating to win

- Identify the Garneau team jersey with the FQSC (Fédération québécoise des sports cyclistes) slogan, “Roulez gagnant au naturel”, as well as its national equivalent, “Race clean, own your victory”, implemented by the CCA (Canadian Cycling Association).

- Institute an internal screening system in conjunction with the CCES (Canadian Center for Ethics in Sports)

- Include an aggressive fine if a rider tests positive for performance-enhancing drugs.

Garneau also vowed to fully investigate the positives of Papillon and Agreda in conjunction with the relevant authorities.

"The next step for us is that we now have to go to the source and find out who the suppliers of performance enhancing drugs are. That is something that will also involve the police over the next few weeks."

Papillon has already accepted a two-year ban from the CCES, while Agreda is still awaiting what will likely be the same penalty.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) announced today that it has signed a long-term agreement with pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline to get assistance in its efforts to stay on top of detection methods for emerging performance-enhancing drugs.

The agency inked a deal with GSK in London last month which will allow it to have confidential information about products in the early stages of development which have the potential to be used as performance enhancing drugs. That information will allow the agency to develop tests before the drugs can find their way into the hands of athletes.

"GSK has worked with WADA to establish a formal scientific review process within its Research and Development teams to help identify as early as possible drugs with potential for sports-related abuse. This includes regular reviews at key research milestones," the press release stated.

A group of scientists will look for stimulatory effects or improved physical endurance, and any substances showing performance-enhancing characteristics will be flagged for WADA, and data delivered to the agency so it can begin to work on detection methods.

The move follows a trend of cooperation between drug manufacturers and anti-doping authorities that dates back to the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, where Amgen helped testers come up with a detection method for Aranesp, the company's erythropoietin compound.

The test, developed with UCLA's Don Catlin, was successful in catching three athletes for doping.

In 2008, when the French anti-doping agency discovered riders using the newest blood booster CERA at the Tour de France, it was the drug's manufacturer Roche that helped to hone the test.

In the past year, a relationship between the two sides has been more formalised, with a joint declaration between WADA and the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations being signed in July 2010.

"Our work with the pharmaceutical industry is critical to staying one step ahead of the dopers, who have an ever increasing level of scientific expertise," said WADA president John Fahey. "We are delighted to be entering into this partnership with GSK as it will play a significant role in helping WADA achieve its mission of a doping free sporting culture."

Along with this agreement, GSK is also the Official Laboratory Services provider for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games in London. Patrick Vallance, senior vice president of the company's Medicines Discovery and Development acknowledged that the potential for abuse of medicine by athletes is always there, but that he hopes "our contribution of laboratory services to the London 2012 Games and this longer term partnership with WADA will demonstrate the positive role that science can play within sport and contribute to protecting the health of athletes involved."

Arguably the most important figure in Spanish cycling over the past 20 years, Eufemiano Fuentes is reviled by many but views himself as cycling’s ultimate altruist.

Born in Gran Canaria, in the Canary Islands, as the eldest of six children, Fuentes enjoyed a privileged upbringing thanks to the wealth his family had accumulated from a successful tobacco business. He was the first member of the family to attend university, studying medicine at the University of Navarra in Pamplona. A keen athlete, he became a decent hurdler under the direction of coach Manuel Pascua Piqueras, with whom he’s maintained close links.

A ransom of almost a million dollars was demanded but never paid. Some months later, his uncle’s body was found, headless and limbless, in a well near the family estate. A local delinquent was later charged with the murder.

After leaving Pamplona in 1980, Fuentes returned to Las Palmas and began to establish himself as a gynaecologist. Every afternoon, though, he would turn his focus to athletics, doing strength tests in order to further his knowledge of endurance sports. Later that year, Pascua called with an offer that would enable him to combine his passions for sport and science. Fuentes barely hesitated in taking what was initially planned as a five-year sabbatical from gynaecology but became a much longer break.

Despite rumours of doping, Fuentes’s career progressed smoothly until Spanish sprinter and hurdler Cristina Pérez tested positive in the wake of the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Trained by Pascua, Pérez was also Fuentes’s girlfriend. The pair married later that year, by which point it had been revealed that Spanish sports authorities had tried to cover up her positive result.

A change of regime saw Pascua and Fuentes ushered out of the Spanish athletics hierarchy in 1989. “There are many reasons to think that they were using doping techniques,” explained new Spanish Athletics Federation president José María Odriozola.

Fuentes took advantage of the situation by focusing full time on professional cycling, where his skills were in demand and the financial rewards were substantially bigger. He took up an offer from ONCE team boss Manolo Saiz to become the Spanish squad’s doctor but even by that point his links to the sport were well established.

In 1985, thanks to Pascua’s brother, cycling coach José Luis Pascua (who has also been implicated in the Galgo investigation), Fuentes had started working with the Orbea team. That year, the team won the Vuelta with Pedro Delgado. In 1988, backed by Caja Rural, Fuentes accompanied them on his first Tour de France.

During those early years, Fuentes was a popular if somewhat maverick member of the teams he worked for. Former Orbea staff remember how he needed to be woken up by one of the soigneurs most mornings and arrived late to almost every race, always using the excuse that his grandmother had died. “How many grandmothers have you got?” he was eventually asked.

In 1989, Fuentes moved to the emerging ONCE team. Although his relationship with domineering team boss Saiz lasted only two seasons, it would become apparent that the pair maintained their co-operation in a less obvious way. At this point in his career, Fuentes wasn’t one for remaining in the shadows. In 1991, he flew out to Mallorca for one of the key time trials in that year’s Vuelta, with a small fridge occupying the seat next to him.

“In here lies the key to the Vuelta,” he joked with journalists on the flight. What was in the fridge and who received it is a mystery. ONCE’s Melchor Mauri won the time trial and went on to take the Spanish tour’s overall title.

Fuentes worked briefly with Amaya, then moved on to the long-standing Kelme team, where his skills were to grow to legendary proportions, at least among those on the inside of the sport. At Kelme, Fuentes was much more than the standard team doctor. He decided on strategy, selected teams and provided training advice. By the time of the Puerto investigation, this advice was reportedly costing each rider consulting with him about 24,000 Euro a year. Given the number of athletes whose names would surface in the Puerto inquiry, or were rumoured to be involved, Fuentes must have been one of the sport’s best-paid men.

In 2005, it was reported that Fuentes had left the sport to focus on research work but it soon became clear that he was still involved in cycling. His undoing stemmed from an incident that barely made news at the time. In September 2003, Kelme had fired Jesús Manzano after it was claimed that a woman had been found in his room during the Vuelta. Manzano contested the charge and, having failed to regain his place on the team or get the wages he claimed he was owed, decided to outline the extent of doping activity within the squad to Spanish sports paper Diario AS.

The Wire

Although widely discredited by Kelme and others, Manzano’s allegations prompted Spain’s Guardia Civil to launch their own undercover investigation. So began a process that wouldn’t have been out of place in the TV series The Wire. During 2004, the Guardia’s first key lead came from a tap they’d installed on Manuel Pascua’s mobile phone.

This led police to Madrid-based haematologist José Luis Merino Batres, who had been collaborating with a number of sports doctors, including Fuentes. When police searched Fuentes’s Madrid home on the Calle de Alonso Cano in 2006, they turned up dozens of bags of blood and plasma, plus EPO and hundreds of documents regarding products given to athletes listed under code names.

With Liberty Seguros team manager Saiz also detained, the inquiry quickly led to the team’s sponsor quitting the sport. A few weeks later, on the eve of the 2006 Tour, news of the operation broke and Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso and several other key riders were pulled out of the race.

Among those banned as a result of the Puerto affair was Liberty Seguros rider Jörg Jaksche, who described to the German press just how hands-on Fuentes had been when it came to dealing with riders. “He was the one who personally did the blood transfusions,” Jaksche told Der Spiegel.

Jaksche went in January 2005 and was offered “the full programme”. They discussed and rejected the use of steroids and artificial haemoglobin, then moved on to EPO. Jaksche admitted he was afraid of being caught out in controls but Fuentes had found a way around them. “He told me that he had a method for hiding EPO use, something that he gave me in a little box of pills, something I had to mix with my urine in dope controls. Then we started talking about blood doping. It was all new to me but he talked about it as if it was just like shelling peas.”

Asked what surprised him most about the Puerto affair, Jaksche confessed that it wasn’t the names that had appeared, which included the two biggest favourites for the Tour title. Instead, it was “those that did not appear”. He explained that no one really knows who was working with Fuentes, who he described as “a master of camouflage. None of his clients know about each other. Not even riders on the same team know if other riders are working with him.”

Although it’s the doping allegations that have brought Fuentes’s name to wider attention, his expertise in the complex science of endurance sports can’t be understated. Nor can his constant search for knowledge. In 2003, he received high praise for his doctoral thesis, entitled Indicators of Muscular Damage in Professional Cyclists During Major Tours.

Earlier this year, Saiz pointed out another quality, describing Fuentes as “the best psychologist that exists”. He went on to add: “I’ve seen him giving group therapy sessions when he was with me at ONCE and the dynamic he created within the group was very good.” These qualities were at least a part of what made him such a key member of the teams he worked for.

Set to be prosecuted, although the Galgo investigation is ongoing, Fuentes has remained unrepentant.

Indeed, he’s even compared himself to another famous scientist who was vilified for his heretical beliefs – Galileo. The comparison is laughable but Fuentes insists that he’s an honest man.

He described his job as being to ensure that riders could put up with the physical demands being made of them. His primary concern, he affirmed, was the health of the athletes. In addition, he claimed that he was one of the few people within the sport focused on their health.

He concluded by asserting that he had been demonised, but declared that history may well be his redeemer. “In 20 years’ time they may give me the Nobel Prize or build a monument commemorating my achievements,” he said. “But they might kill me as well.”

This article appears in the May 2011 issue of Procycling. Click here to find out how you can obtain your copy.

His own words

On giving athletes medical help: “They are given much smaller doses than those I give my patients when they have been prescribed similar medication, and none of them has ever taken a turn for the worst.”

Former French rider and proponent of cycling “à l'eau claire”, Christophe Bassons, told Cyclingnews on Wednesday that he “hopes Lance Armstrong can live with the consequences” of the ongoing federal investigation into the seven-time Tour winner and his erstwhile US Postal team.

Bassons, who clashed with Armstrong during the 1999 Tour over the Frenchman’s outspoken views on doping, was reacting to comments by Floyd Landis in an interview with the Sunday Times’s Paul Kimmage published earlier this week. In the article, Kimmage cited Bassons as someone who rejected the drug-taking that Landis saw as a necessary evil to fulfil his ambitions in the Tour de France.

Landis wasn’t familiar with Bassons’s story, but seemed impressed by what Kimmage told him.

“I’m impressed. I don’t know how many guys would [have the strength of character not to dope] but there’s not a lot… I don’t know [Bassons]. I would like to know him though.”

“To me, courage is all about overcoming fear, and I was never scared. I was just lucky - I’d had a balanced upbringing, lots of love in my life, and no void which made me want to dope. Refusing to take drugs was easy for me, whereas other people have things missing in their lives which mean that’s not the case. Doping is always a response to a void, a need – whether it’s for money, or success, or love, or something else. That’s why it’s a mistake to fight the war on doping in terms of health – because, if you actually analyse it, doping responds to a need there too, because you can be healthier doing the Tour de France on drugs than without anything.”

“Everyone has their own sense of legitimate and illegitimate, which is different from what is licit and illicit. For example, I might think it’s legitimate to drive my car at 90kph in an 80kph zone, if me being late means that my son will walk out into the school playground and not see his dad. For Richard Virenque, doping was legitimate because, for some reason, he needed the love and admiration of the public. For some riders from Eastern Europe it’s legitimate because they need money for their families – which is hard to condemn. Or a teenager might take steroids and go to the gym to pump iron because he’s uncomfortable with his body. In that case, doping serves his need – it perpetuates it too, but as far as the kid is concerned it solves his particular problem…”

“I don’t care what anyone does, as long as they don’t try to stop me from living my life, or doing my job, which is what bothered me about Armstrong. But, again, I won’t judge. With him, I think it’s obvious there was a need for success. He didn’t have a relationship with his father, and his upbringing wasn’t easy, then I think what was already a hard character probably became more and more entrenched in those ways as he got a bit of success with triathlon and then in cycling, plus money and adulation….”

Filippo Simeoni has applauded Floyd Landis for “finally setting the record straight” about the Italian’s infamous clash with Lance Armstrong in the 2004 Tour de France.

In an interview with Paul Kimmage of the Sunday Times, Landis spoke of his disgust at his then team-mate Armstrong chasing Simeoni in stage 18 of that 2004 Tour from Annemasse to Lons-le-Saunier. Two years earlier, Simeoni had testified in court against Michele Ferrari – the same Italian doctor who, Landis claims, masterminded his and Armstrong’s doping programme at US Postal.

Armstrong has rejected Landis’s allegations and denied that he doped under Ferrari’s or anyone else’s supervision on numerous occasions.

Landis told Kimmage that he was “extremely upset” by Armstrong’s victimization of Simeoni. He also claimed he had told US Postal Service directeur sportif Johan Bruyneel during that 18th stage that Armstrong looked “like an idiot”.

Simeoni said on Wednesday that “the truth about that Tour, Armstrong and what kind of person he is, is slowly coming out”.

“I was happy to read what Landis said,” Simeoni told Cyclingnews on Wednesday. “It merely confirms that I told the truth all along about that incident, and that Armstrong was in the wrong. The truth about him is slowly coming out. I have faith in the federal agents investigating him in the United States, and I’m curious to see what else they find out over the coming months.”

 Simeoni also praised Landis for belatedly coming clean about his own doping. In his interview with Kimmage, Landis spoke of his lack of faith in the cycling authorities, and its influence on what was nonetheless his conscious and inexcusable decision to take drugs. Simeoni, likewise, admitted under oath in 2002 that Ferrari had helped him to dope in the late 1990s – a time when the use of “illegal aids” was almost universal but not justifiable.

“It seems as though Landis’s conscience has caught up with him. It’s much better late than never, for him and the sport,” Simeoni, who now owns and runs a bar in Sezze in central Italy, commented.

“I always said that doping was generalized and you could say even democratic up to the time when they developed a test for EPO, then it became elitist. You needed cutting-edge methods to get around the tests from that point on – methods that often only the big riders and teams could access or afford. If Landis is saying that corruption was another way around the tests, I can’t confirm it because I was in small teams and had no exposure to that, but I can believe it, with all of the economic interests at play. As I said before, I’m very curious to see what the US government and Jeff Novitzky uncover in their investigation…”

Simeoni added finally that he has never been contacted by Novitzky within the scope of the federal investigation.

Floyd Landis has launched an attack on the cycling authorities he believes have enabled and covered up doping within the sport and said that doping should be legalised. The American announced his retirement from the sport earlier in the week but his comments to Cyclingnews come on the back of a Sports Illustrated story in which they claim that Lance Armstrong showed abnormally high testosterone ratios on three occasions in the 1990s. Armstrong denied the accusations.

Landis won the Tour de France in 2006, but lost the title after testing positive for synthetic testosterone during the race. He maintained his innocence and put up a major public defence, spending his life savings as well as cash secured from donations, before finally losing the fight and his Tour title.

In April last year a series of emails from Landis to various cycling authorities and media outlets were published in which he appeared as the whistle blower of a set of major drug scandals and cover-ups involving the US Postal team, Lance Armstrong, Johan Bruyneel and the sport's governing body, the UCI. All parties discredited Landis and proclaimed their innocence. The FDA have since opened an investigation and spoken to a number of former Postal riders as well as reportedly meeting with French police at the Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France.

However Landis's beliefs that doping should be legalised come on the back of his retirement. He told Cyclingnews:

"In the US we have these gun laws where half the country thinks we should have them and half don't, but the fact of the matter is that the bad guys have guns and you can't get them back from the bad guys. It's nice to live in a pretend world where you can start over, where you say you're not going to have guns, well that's wonderful and good luck with that and go to church on Sundays and enjoy yourself, but the fact of the matter is that there are guns and the bad guys have them and trying to keep others from having them isn't going to accomplish anything," he said, using guns as an analogy for doping in sport.

"You got to go about it another way and you've got to legalise doping. They [the testers] are so far behind in the testing organisations that there's no way to change it now. Just accept that it's here, that it's not going away and that it's just going to get more complicated and the fact that it's not that complicated yet compared to what it will be. Ten years from now it's going to be four times as hard as it now to test for things.

Landis expressed a pessimistic view of efforts to clean up the sport, saying, "They're not even remotely close to catching anybody; it's just a joke. You can use as much EPO as you want and unless you're an idiot you're not going to get caught.

"Just start over and let it be. I'm convinced now that there's no stopping it and you've got to stop ruining lives over it. The bad guys will always have guns and the bad guys will always use drugs and that will force the good guys to do the same.

"Since you can't stop it you have to deal with it in rational kind of way. You can't stop it and you cant fix it. Monitor it and make sure people don't hurt themselves, but you have to accept it."

Landis' letters last year named a number of ex-teammates as well as old friends as being involved in doping.

"It was hard to put them all on the same level when some were friends, but I had to separate that if I was going to be honest. Good people dope, bad people dope it's just the way it was and the offence is not greater if you are an asshole or a saint."

Until yesterday Landis was willing to walk away from the sport, however the Sports Illustrated article which appeared Tuesday has angered him. Despite this and the days Landis said he spent soul searching before making his retirement announcement, the American believes that whatever the outcome, he leaves with a clear conscience.

"Maybe I just want to be able to live with myself," he told Cyclingnews.

"The people pointing fingers could take a lesson from that. The sport wanted a fall guy and they got it. I didn't want to be that guy but I finally accepted that I am that guy and admitted everything and now they say I'm lying again. It doesn't matter anymore. I'm happy now. I've got my pride. I don't care about anything else."

On Wednesday, British cyclist Bradley Wiggins told Cyclingnews that Lance Armstrong was 'innocent until proven guilty' and added that: "I think you have to question Landis' credibility because he lied under oath before and the stories that you hear about him drinking and things like that and you know, [making] telephone calls to people I know, threatening them with things, you just think that the guy appears to not all be there. So when you see these kinds of claims in the press you have to question his credibility because it's almost like it's coming from a mad man, but at the same time maybe that's all borne out of frustration and things."

However, Landis told Cyclingnews that his motives stem from wanting to help cycling as well.

"If people are willing to come to me and talk to me and I believe that there are a bunch of honest people out there, whether they doped or not. Some of them would like to tell the truth but nobody wants to do what I did. Nobody wants to set off a bomb in their face and deal with it. Why would they when they don't have to?"

"The truth needs to be out because until people can see the whole story…. It's not about one guy, everyone is wrong here, even Wiggins, who is talking the way he his, saying how I ruined cycling in his book. He wants to apply this 'innocent until proven guilty' to Lance because he's scared of him? That's chicken, just shut up and don't talk."

Back in May of last year Landis detailed the looming statute of limitations deadline on the information he's provided as the motivation behind his revelations. "I want to clear my conscience," Landis told ESPN. "I don't want to be part of the problem any more."

Now, with the investigation underway, Landis admits that he has nothing to lose.

"I know it sounds depressing, but there's more to life than cycling. I love riding my bike and I always will but you have to separate what you want out of bike racing from what you want out of riding your bike. Don't lump it all into one thing and get depressed. I did that for a while and it made me insane. If you want to watch bike racing for what it is and the drama, that's great."

"I can be frank because I can take a position where I'm willing to lose everything. Maybe that's a character flaw, but that's just the way I am. Now when it comes to the breaking point where people are saying innocent until proven guilty when it's clear what the facts and there's no risk to telling the truth because I took the fall, then you're a fake, you're a fraud."

The Royal Belgian Cycling Federation (KBWB) announced today that it has given former Milram rider Roy Sentjens a two-year suspension and €10,000 fine for doping.

Sentjens tested positive in an out-of-competition test on August 16, 2010 for erythropoeitin (EPO). After initially declaring his innocence, the 29-year-old confessed to using the drug in an attempt to get results and gain a contract for the 2011 season.

While Sentjens immediately retired from the sport after his admission, the KBWB clarified in its statement that the period for appeal of its decision has not yet ended.

45-year-old Michigan resident Neal Schubel received a two-year suspension for EPO use, the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) announced today. The rider from Saginaw was banned "based on his purchase, possession and use of synthetic erythropoietin (EPO)", the press release stated.

Schubel's sanction started on November 18, 2010, when he accepted the ruling, but dates back to August 1, 2006, "the date he first committed the anti-doping rule violation based on his prompt admission to USADA after being confronted with evidence in USADA’s possession".

USADA stripped Schubel of his results from August 1, 2006 onward. USA Cycling lists only a dozen results in that time frame - a mix of road and cross country events, the best of which was a fourth place in the Tour De Frankenmuth in 2008.

Former pro rider Bernhard Kohl testified against his manager Stefan Matschiner on the first day of his trial in front of the Vienna criminal court today. Matschiner was released from custody in May after being accused of having provided performance-enhancing substances and methods - blood doping - to his clients.

Earlier in the day Matschiner admitted having given eight of his athletes EPO, testosterone and growth hormone, but he denied being guilty of supplying blood transfusions - having simply taken the blood doping equipment to Slovenia and Hungary in 2008 - before this kind of practice became illegal in Austria.

Matschiner named three athletes to whom he aided in doping: Kohl, his former Gerolsteiner teammate Markus Zberg and triathlete Lisa Hütthaler. He did not reveal the identity of five remaining athletes.

But the Austrian denied that the substances he gave his clients were a danger to their health. "They were minimal doses. I don't have a bad conscience with the treatment plans that I wrote."

Kohl took the stand later in the afternoon, and confirmed that Matschiner had aided himself and two other cyclists in blood doping on September 24, 2008 - several weeks after a new law banning the practice had been put in place in Austria.

The rider went on to detail that he had bought performance enhancing drugs from Matschiner between 2005 and 2008, saying that after he signed with T-Mobile in 2005, "I knew that I would have to submit to doping in the professional ranks if I wanted to be in the top division."

The first plan, Kohl said, involved the use of EPO and growth hormones, but after Kohl heard that the Humanplasma company was providing autologous blood doping to athletes, he told his manager that he wanted to do that. He booked appointments for treatments, but after the Olympic scandal in 2006 when several Austrian athletes fell under suspicion of blood doping, the company destroyed all the blood bags, Kohl said.

In 2008, Matschiner advised Kohl to switch to the EPO derivative CERA, for which he later tested positive during the 2008 Tour de France.

Apart from Kohl, Rasmussen and Hoffmann, the case also involves triathlete Lisa Hütthaler and Italian rider Pietro Caucchioli, who is currently sitting out a two-year doping suspension.

While Hoffman and Hütthaler will act as witnesses at a later date, Rasmussen and Caucchioli have not responded to the court call at all and will be ordered to appear again to the next court date this autumn.

The Operación Grial investigation into an alleged doping ring centred on the Spanish city of Valencia is reported to have turned up evidence of doping within the Kelme team in 2003 and 2004.

According to Tuesday’s edition of Spanish sports daily AS, among the papers found during a search of a Valencia clinic run by ex-Kelme doctor Walter Virú were records of doping plans and treatments. AS indicates that some of the plans could have been drawn up for riders who are still competing.

AS claims that these plans are exactly the same as those that former Kelme rider Jesús Manzano showed to the Spanish cycling federation and police investigators back in 2004 when Manzano alleged systematic doping had taken place within that team.

At that time Manzano alleged that a variety of what appeared to be code words within the plans referred to use of Russian EPO, human growth hormone and nandrolone.

Spanish police searched 15 premises and arrested 12 people as part of Operación Grial, including Virú, his wife and two of his sons.

The enfant terrible of Italian cycling, Riccardo Riccò, has urged fans to reserve their judgment ahead of his return to racing in March next year. Riccò, who hopes that a wildcard invitation for his Ceramica Flamina team will allow him to make his comeback at Milan-San Remo on March 20, told Procycling Magazine that he "deserves a second chance" after his positive test for CERA at the 2008 Tour de France.

In the interview, to appear in Procycling’s forthcoming February Issue (on sale in January), Riccò admitted that he is still haunted by flashbacks of his dramatic exit from that Tour. The self-styled "Cobra" also claimed the memory is the best possible incentive not to dope again.

"There’s maybe a difference between just getting a piece of paper telling you that you’ve tested positive and being kicked out of the Tour de France and thrown in a prison cell," Riccò said in the interview, which took place at the end of November in Serramazzoni, central Italy, where he spends much of the year. "It really shocks you. And humiliates you. At first you can barely look people in the eye. You gradually inch back towards normal life, but it’s horrible at first."

In Riccò’s case "normal" life meant the routine of the racing cyclist. Having spent several months struggling to come to terms with his new reality, and a further period when his main occupation was teaching spinning classes in his local gym, he has now been in full-time training for almost a year. Taking inspiration from Ivan Basso, just as the Liquigas rider did during his doping ban, Riccò has even gone as far as simulating stage races behind a scooter or car in his bid to regain race fitness.

Riccò now says that he’s "confident" of competing drug-free with the best riders in the world, perhaps even as early as San Remo. His 20-month doping ban is due to expire two days before next year’s "Classicissima".

"It’s not easy, having that as your first race but, if not there, I think that I can be competitive again after 10 or 15 races," the 26-year-old explained. "Before San Remo itself I’ll simulate a short stage race. I’ll go to altitude for the first half of March, probably to Spain or somewhere else warm. Here, on our mountains, you can’t because there are six metres of snow. Then I’ll do my utmost to be competitive straight away."

For most fans the concern is not how Riccò rides but how sorry he is about his past misdemeanours. In the Procycling interview, it is put to the Italian that his second stage win of that 2008 Tour, set up by a blistering attack on the Col d’Aspin, bordered on the grotesque. Riccò’s smiling response is not entirely reassuring.

Asked, though, whether he thinks that he can redeem himself in the eyes and affections of fans in Italy and abroad, Riccò appeared optimistic.

"I know it’ll be difficult but I’m confident," he said. "The results of the tests that I’ve done on my bike have been good. Let’s see when I come back. In the main, I’ll concentrate on what I have to do on the road. That’s what counts really. If I start winning again, people won’t even remember what happened to me – the same thing that happened to lots of other riders.

"As far as journalists are concerned, when there’s an interview to do, I’ll do it, but I won’t go looking for it like perhaps Basso did," he continued. "He was always in the papers throughout his ban. I’ll try to keep a lower profile, also because I don’t see why I should take away a share of the limelight from people who are out there racing and suffering."

Riccò met with his new Ceramica Flaminia team-mates at a short training camp in Riccione, on Italy’s Adriatic coast, earlier this week. Registered in the UCI Professional Continental division – and hence on the UCI’s biological passport programme – Ceramica Flaminia hope that riders like Riccò, former Liberty Seguros climber Giampaolo Caruso and veteran domestique Andrea Noè will convince Giro d’Italia and San Remo chief Angelo Zomegnan that the team is worthy of entry to both races.

One man who will no longer ride for the team in 2010 is former Italian champion Filippo Simeoni, who retired at the end of last season. In the Procycling article, Simeoni describes Flaminia’s signing of Riccò as "questionable".
 

UCI anti-doping manager Anne Gripper has said that the UCI is not involved in the retesting of the 2008 Tour de France samples, but that the governing body agrees in theory with the principle of re-examining suspect controls.

"It depends on the basis for the retests," she told Cyclingnews, when asked this morning about the practice. "We have retested some samples so the concept is something we think is appropriate under certain conditions. We store samples on the basis that if a new test can be done in the future, if there’s good reason to do them and if the circumstances are right, we’ll use them."

As reported yesterday on Cyclingnews, the French National Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) has started testing samples taken from a group of riders during the 2008 Tour. Up to 40 competitors are suspected of doping, and several big names are rumoured to be on the list.

Gripper outlined that the 2008 event was run under a different system than usual. "We worked in collaboration with the AFLD in 2009 and in previous years, but the 2008 Tour was different. It was national race last year," she said, referring to the temporary split between the UCI and ASO over the ProTour. "So we have no jurisdiction over the 2008 Tour samples.

"The decision to re-analyse samples from the 2008 was taken of their own volition. The UCI was not involved in any way with that choice. We haven’t been involved yet and I suspect that it will be something the AFLD manages themselves. As yet I don’t know what samples they’re looking at…I presume they will be urine."

Last year’s Tour de France was marked by several high-profile positive tests, with stage winner Riccardo Ricco testing positive for CERA, a third-generation form of EPO. Manuel Beltran and Moises Duenas failed tests for regular EPO, while Dmitry Fofonov was found to have heptaminol in his system. All were thrown off the race.

The AFLD did a limited number of retests after the conclusion of the event, and as a result stage ten winner Leonardo Piepoli, double time trial victor Stefan Schumacher plus third-place finisher and King of the Mountains Bernhard Kohl were all disqualified for CERA.

The new round of analysis uses more sensitive tests. A number of riders were told before this year’s Tour de France that their samples were likely to be re-examined, and the results of this work will be known within a fortnight.

While the prospect of more positives from the race will undoubtedly be a blow to cycling, the AFLD is staying true to its word to fully investigate any suspicious values from 2008. It has also said that it will apply retrospective tests to the 2009 samples when more advanced tests are finalised.

Gripper envisages that the UCI will be involved again with the AFLD in 2010. "There’s a very good chance we’ll work together, regardless of the results from this set of testing,” she said. "The management would be the same as the process in 2009,"

David Walsh, one of the sport's leading anti-doping fighters and chief sports writer for the Sunday Times has hit out at the UCI and the biological passport programme, saying that cycling's governing body is still some way short from catching the leading cheats.

Walsh, author of, From Lance to Landis and LA Confidentiel told Cyclingnews, "The passport seemed like a good idea but I don't believe that the system can catch the sophisticated cheater. The evidence we have so far is that the guys towards the winning end of the classification in big races are still significantly ahead of the UCI's checks."

Asked for evidence to back up these claims, Walsh pointed to Antoine Vayer, a former coach from the Festina team, who now analyses data from the Grand Tour's major climbs and rider's power outputs.

"I look at the times and Vayer's take on it. He looked at this year's race: the speed, the speed on the climbs and he said ‘sorry, this sport has not seriously changed'. I'm sure it has changed to a degree but if it hasn't changed at the very top then it hasn't changed in the way we wanted it to."

The biological passport, which is a record of every rider's blood profile, is paid for by the sport's professional teams at a cost € 5.3 million in 2008. The UCI spent over a year collecting data by testing riders in order to build up long-term profiles.

The data is analysed by independent experts. It has already led to several doping cases being opened, with former Giro d'Italia winner Danilo Di Luca the highest profile case.

The Italian's career now looks to be in tatters, but according to Walsh, cycling's purification lies with the sport's governance and not just the actions and behaviour of the riders.

Attacking a lack of consistency by the UCI, Walsh pinpointed the body's president, Pat McQuaid, who had previously ruled out retesting of last year's drug test from the Giro.

"In the wake of the revelations that riders had used CERA in last year's Tour de France the UCI were invited to go back and look the test results from the Giro."

Ricardo Ricco finished second overall to Alberto Contador at the Giro d'Italia last year and then two months later tested positive for CERA at the Tour de France. The UCI president Pat McQuaid refused to perform retroactive testing on the Giro samples last year, but just last week changed his mind and is trying to obtain the samples to have the tests done.

"The UCI president refused retrospective testing. He said it was a bad idea. How can he have one view and then a few months later completely change? There's obviously some pressure and it's politically wise to retest those samples now. It shows that at that top level it's a game of politics and not a game of integrity." Walsh added.

With Alexandre Vinokourov set to make his return to racing after serving a two year ban for blood doping, Walsh refused to comment on whether the rider's comeback was a blow for cycling. "I reserve my disgust for the people who should be policing the sport. The Vinokourov's are just the pawns who do things, come back and don't change their mindsets."

Walsh, who is currently investigating the drug culture within rugby union after three Bath players refused drug tests, believes that proper policing would act as a key deterrent.

"We've seen all of this before, but the UCI should be the ones saying to the riders ‘you're not going to get away with it. We're on your case. If we get evidence that you've used a drug we couldn't test for last year we will go back and retest those samples.' "

This year, the Tour de Franc has so far passed with just one positive doping test (Mikel Astarloza, EPO), but Walsh pointed to winner Alberto Contador as an example of a how the sport had missed a chance to portray a cleaner image.

Contador has never tested positive; however he was initially implicated in the Operacion Puerto scandal that hit the sport in 2006. He was suspected of being the rider whose blood bags were labeled 'AC', but was later cleared.

"We want a winner we can believe in. Everyone wants that. If we had Alberto Contador's involvement in Puerto properly thrashed out and found out precisely who AC was and what he was doing I'd be a lot happier."

"I've always been unhappy when thing's aren't dealt with and his alleged involvement has never been dealt with. When he's asked a question at the Tour about his VO2 Max and doesn't answer, I just think, why? Why would you refuse to answer a question like that? It's something that a lot of cycling fans would like to know."

When the UCI announced they were to work with the AFLD at this year’s Tour de France, a ripple of quiet applause went through cycling’s echelons. Yet despite this step and the implementation of the most sophisticated testing ever seen in the Tour, it is possible that micro-dosing of EPO could go undetected by the biological passport.

Anne Gripper, head of the UCI’s anti-doping programme was at the Tour until Sunday, collaborating with the AFLD in order to make sure that the competition testing in this year’s race went as smoothly as possible. Gripper also met with the IAF (International Athletics Federation) in their Monaco base to discuss the full implementation of the biological passport.

For Gripper and the UCI though, this year should see testing that’s far more comprehensive than in 2008, when six positive tests were uncovered during and after the race. Along with a ‘focussed’ testing programme, which the UCI ran during a five-week period before the race on a selected batch of fifty riders, cycling’s governing body will test riders during the Tour for a number of substances and blood manipulation.

“As well as the focussed pre-competition testing already completed we’ll be carrying out in-competition testing that we agreed with the AFLD,” she told Cyclingnews. “Those two elements together will make it as robust as possible.”

Gripper added that the testing procedures are far more intelligent than last year, as along with the normal eight post-competition urine tests, the UCI will combine biological passport testing with a quick turn-around of results. This is something that was lacking in last year’s race and allowed Bernhard Kohl and Stefan Schumacher to prosper all the way to Paris.

“There’s follow up testing and we’re using a range of different types of tests in the morning and in the evening. For example we’ll test riders for human growth hormone, homologous blood transfusion and CERA in the morning [there is no point doing this after the stage], and every rider had a biological passport test on Thursday in their hotels. Biological passport testing will also be conducted on several mornings during the race”

The UCI’s new fast-track testing means that the biological passport results were available for analysis the very next day, from which point they carried out a set of further tests with daily collaboration and communication with the AFLD.

“If it’s a positive test for CERA EPO or growth hormone our results management process means that we have a very fast procedure for suspending a rider almost immediately. However if it’s a test that suggests a biological profile looks suspicious, then the procedure takes longer. We need to monitor the profile and seek further analysis.”

However recent comments from one of UCI’s independent advisors have dampened expectations that the passport is fool-proof. “Riders can’t use the passport to help them dope but the clever riders might be able to avoid things being obvious. Things like micro doses of EPO are difficult for the passport to pick up. The positive side of this is that you don’t get much performance enhancement from this, and riders will have to drastically modify their doping behaviour. The passport does detect any form of blood manipulation, though.”

Team Katusha's Antonio Colom has been provisionally suspended by the UCI following a positive test for recombinant EPO. The sport's governing body announced Tuesday that Colom returned the positive test following an out-of-competition control on April 2, 209. He was targeted for additional controls using information from his blood profile and his race schedule, the UCI said.

Team director Serge Parsani was surprised at the news. "This is the first I heard of this. If it is on the UCI's website at least they could inform the team," he told Cyclingnews.

Colom is the second rider from the team to test positive. Austrian Christian Pfannberger was declared positive on May 6 this year. The UCI later confirmed that he was found positive for EPO.

Colom is allowed to request the counter-analysis of his B-sample, and his suspension will remain provisional until the Spanish Cycling Federation decides whether he has violated the anti-doping rules.

Questioned as to whether any announcements about the biological passport would be made at tomorrow's press conference in Paris, the International Cycling Union (UCI) has remained tight-lipped.

"We will talk about our collaboration with the AFLD [French anti-doping agency ] for the Tour de France," UCI President Pat McQuaid told Cyclingnews. The Irishman refused to comment as to whether or not results from the biological passport would be disclosed.

What is certain to be discussed is the anti-doping programme for the Tour, as it is the official purpose of the conference. Last year, the French anti-doping agency AFLD was responsible for testing and caught several riders, including stage winners Riccardo Riccò and Stefan Schumacher, plus the mountains classification victor and third-placed finisher Bernhard Kohl.

The two bodies announced in March that they would work together for this year's Tour. "The AFLD did an excellent job in those controls," stated McQuaid at the time. "Some riders tested positive and that's a success. It's important that the cheats get caught."

Whether or not the biological passport is on the schedule, it's likely to be brought up by the media following Kohl's comments to L'Equipe.

The cycling union announced the passport programme in late 2007 and test results began to be analysed shortly after that point. There has been a considerable wait for results, something that is attributed to the necessity to have watertight cases as it is the first time such an anti-doping protocol has been used by a sporting governing body.

Rather than pinpointing one positive result, as has been the case with previous anti-doping tests, the biological passport seeks to build a profile from which suspicious deviations can be made apparent.