Shorter L'Equipe: blackball Basso!
Shorter T-Mob: Basso=Ullrich
This is my favorite line: "We can't comment on the Basso case without knowing the details," said Christian Frommert, director of sport communications for T-Mobile, on www.t-mobile-team.com. "But we are still worried as to whether the sport will be able to effectively fight against doping. We need firm alliances for that."
In other words, we can't comment without knowing the details, but if we were going to, it'd sound something like this...
Everybody has an opinion on the Basso "case," including me, and as it happens, mine goes something like "if nobody thinks he can be prosecuted, maybe he's innocent." Whatever.
The salient point here is, Cycling itself needs a way to either convict or exonerate its riders. The worst possible scenario, which is apparently about to play out next July, is where a rider is caught in between, and every race has its own standard about who is or isn't cleared to ride. And of course, leave it to ASO to decide that every rider mentioned in a whisper campaign is out, at least if he's foreign and has a chance of winning.
Are we ready for a unified governing body yet?