I knew it was too good to be true...
The UCI has just announced that Euskaltel's Mikel Astarloza tested positive on June 26 for recombinant EPO. He is of course being considered innocent until proven guilty, but he certainly won't be participating in tomorrow's Clasica San Sebastian.
Otherwise, it casts a shadow on what had been--until this point--a clean Tour de France. Astarloza was the winner of Stage 16.
I think it was actually Stage 16 that Astarloza won. Now Sandy Cassar gets that win. Another one in the win column for France.
ReplyDeleteThanks for catching the mistake! You're right!
ReplyDeleteAnd FDJ gets their stage...
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out for Euskaltel-Euskadi. Will more riders be implicated? In a team that tight knit, it would seem weird to me that one rider was doping alone.
ReplyDeleteI could be completely wrong though.
You might not be too far off...I could see at least one or two more coming from them.
ReplyDeleteIn the other coverage I've read, it seems EE is standing by their rider, even going so far as to say their in-house blood readings are consistent and don't indicate a problem. The other shoe will drop when they test the B sample.
ReplyDeleteI read this one of two ways:
1) Astarloza is innocent. He's had a false positive, and he'll be cleared.
2) The team is in BIG trouble, and they're substituting bravado for the last gasp of a dying franchise.
I hope it's the former.