Ullrich, Basso risk four years - life-long ban for Hamilton?
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UCI president Pat McQuaid, who was at the Tour de France start in Strasbourg this weekend, said that the procedures to sanction the riders linked to incriminated Dr Fuentes were going to start soon. "The Spanish judicial authorities don't have to investigate further concerning these riders," he said. "As of now, the investigation will go ahead concerning Fuentes, Manolo Saiz and the other persons who were taken into custody at the beginning of the affair. We have received the first dossier of about 50 pages from the Spanish court, and a sanction will be following soon. We are only waiting for the whole dossier, maybe another 300 pages - then the cycling federation can start the procedure."
McQuaid added that the translation of the Spanish documents would take another two weeks for the UCI to perform, but that once this was done, the German, Italian, Portuguese and Australian federations, and "all the other federations concerned" would be notified. "The fate of Ullrich, Basso and co. will be in the hands of their federations," he continued. "The punishment according to the Ethical Charter can be up to four years for ProTour riders and two years for the others. If the sanctions of the national federations do not satisfy us at the UCI, we will appeal them at the CAS."
However, McQuaid did not evoke retroactive sanctions, meaning that Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich will keep their Giro d'Italia and Tour de Suisse victories.
Tyler Hamilton, however could face a life-long ban, as the Spanish Anti-Doping brigade has sent a 300-page thick report to the UCI yesterday. "If he is guilty, it would be Tyler Hamilton's second doping offence," the UCI president added, as the Fuentes files dealing with Hamilton referred to alleged doping practices in 2002-2003. "That could mean a life-long ban."
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