A horrible day for bike racing

A few weeks ago, a major investigation in Spain dubbed Operación Puerto revealed a shockingly huge organized blood doping racket.

Blood doping, for those who don't know, is basically using drugs or other methods (i.e. blood transfusions) to increase the red blood cell count. Red blood cells carry the oxygen your muscles use when excersizing, so you can see how doping would improve the performance of an elite athlete where this is a limiting factor to their maximum abilities.

Some of bike racing's biggest names were implicated, both riders and team officials. I was hoping the Spanish press was speculating with the news of how huge this scandal was, but it looks like that is not the case.

Just today, the two favorites for the Tour de France were suspended by their associated teams - Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso. This came about after Spanish authorities released a preliminary list of confirmed athletes involved in Operación Puerto. The list is shocking, and it looks like some professional teams actually had a team doping policy. Further, this is just a preliminary list, so more names are sure to follow.

I'm floored by this news, and really disappointed. I've always wondered why so many of USA's top professional cyclists have made their home base in Spain. It makes sense to live in Europe, of course, but I really hope this isn't the reason so many have chosen Spain.

You can read a detailed article containing a list of the implicated riders at VeloNews.