Torri talks to Jesus

by KevinK on Feb 26, 2008 9:21 AM EST

Jesus Manzano, that is. Recall that Manzano has accused Valverde of using Testosterone:

From June 07, 2007 Cycling News:

Alejandro Valverde "took the same stuff that they gave me," said his former Kelme teammate Jesus Manzano. He gave a concrete example in an interview with the German magazine Stern, saying "I remember an evening after one of the Vuelta stages in 2002. Valverde came to dinner with a testosterone plaster on. After an hour he ripped it off, otherwise he would have been tested positive."

According to the cycling news blurb, Ettore Torri interviewed Manzano about Operation Puerto. It's been about two years (May 2006) since OP broke. The wheels of doping justice are slow to roll. Will Valverde get nabbed by an Italian prosecutor?

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Not likely a prosecutor...

To get nailed by the Italian legal system, Valverde would need to have committed a crime on Italian soil. He hasn't raced in Italy much, so that isn't too likely.

What's more likely is that CONI will ban Valverde and anyone else they can nail through the Puerto case from racing in Italy. That would mean no Giro, no Tour (it passes through Italy this year), and no Worlds.

If Manzano can give detailed enough evidence, it's possible that Torri could put together a solid case. We'll have to see. I haven't yet seen too much coverage in Italy of this, actually.

LOL, Gazzetta was too distracted today with tales of Basso's humanitarian world tour. He's in India as part of his work for Intervit.

by Jen See on Feb 26, 2008 12:54 PM EST reply actions

a ban in Italy

is equivalent to a ban everywhere, as far as I understand it, which is not much, especially when the Spanish riders are involved. At the least, I can't imagine that this news bodes well for his chances of riding the tour.

However, it will be interesting to see if Torri can do anything about crimes that were committed in Spain.

-K-

by KevinK on Feb 26, 2008 1:38 PM EST up reply actions

He can't...

No jurisdiction. He also doesn't have legal authority to investigate "crimes" in Italy, though CONI and the legal authorities work very closely together.

It may, however, turn out in practice that in banning the riders from riding (heh, redundancy department) in Italy, some of their erm, practices, come to light.

by Jen See on Feb 26, 2008 2:03 PM EST up reply actions