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https://scmp.com/sport/other-sport/article/1666370/italian-cycling-chief-seeks-end-disgraced-doctors-influence-riders Other Sport
Italian cycling chief seeks end of disgraced doctor's influence on riders
Code's Italian chief says disgraced doctor, who at one stage was Lance Armstrong's trainer, is still seeing competitors and action is needed
Banned doctor Michele Ferrari used to train disgraced rider Lance Armstrong. Photo: AP
Law enforcement authorities need to prevent banned doctor Michele Ferrari from seeing riders and conclude his long-running stain on the sport, according to the president of the Italian Cycling Federation.
"It needs to be law enforcement and judicial officials that put an end to it," Renato Di Rocco said. "Unfortunately, teams don't have these means."
Earlier this month, investigators led by Padua prosecutor Benedetto Roberti sent a 550-page file detailing allegations of Ferrari's continued influence on cyclists to the Italian Olympic Committee (Coni).
Of the more than 35 pro cyclists involved in the inquiry, "most of them" are still competing, police said.
Coni's anti-doping prosecutor is currently going through the dossier and will likely start calling in athletes to answer for the case starting next month, the committee said.
The same four-year-old investigation played a role in the massive 2012 report by the US Anti-Doping Agency that detailed doping by Lance Armstrong and led to him being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles.
Armstrong has acknowledged that Ferrari was his trainer until 2004, and Ferrari's name was mentioned throughout the Usada report.
Doping is a crime in Italy, and Ferrari was already cleared on appeal in 2006 of criminal charges of distributing banned products to athletes. But he remains barred for life by the Italian Cycling Federation under a 2002 ruling. Ferrari was also banned for life by Usada in 2012.
"I'm telling you as a citizen of Italy: these long cases don't help anyone," Di Rocco said. "We always ask magistrates to help us and remove bad apples from cycling. But in the end we lose too much time. A lot of the people involved have already served bans."
Calls to Roberti's office went unanswered but nobody has been called to trial yet in the case. A similar judicial inquiry involving alleged doping within the Lampre team has also dragged on for years without reaching any conclusions.
The Gazzetta dello Sport reported this month that investigators photographed Ferrari meeting members of the Astana team outside the team's training camp hotel one night in November last year.