Flies and Bikes Blog

Road.cc reports that a (or, more accurately, another) major clenbuterol doping ring appears to have been uncovered in Spain (Where's the beef? Spanish police seize clenbuterol, and not a cow in sight | road.cc).  It's all highly topical, given Contador's 'get out of jail free' card this week following his positive clenbuterol test last year.  After successive failures at dealing effectively with sports doping, will this lead to greater crackdown?  This doesn't just reflect my unbridled optimism: incidents like the idiot Ricco's home-brew transfusion reveal the dangers inherent in tinkering with one's physiology. Recent news stories have failed to reveal any Spanish cattle containing clenbuterol, while here's a case of a doping ring actually dealing with the stuff.  Oh and EPO too.  Let's get real here, and not prat around failing to uncover the full story (c.f. the Fuentes affair).  And let's get the UCI and its constituent national federations singing from the same song sheet. A bit more information via BikeRadar.com (Spanish police arrest seven doping suspects): those arrested so far aren't cyclists.  But as Road.cc point out, clenbuterol's clearly in use as a performance-enhancing substance in Spain... An interesting point in the BikeRadar.com report touches on how the police got wind of the doping ring (which mostly targetted amateurs):

The operation began in December based on information received from a professional cyclist. The rider, who wasn't named, received an email "from a person he didn't know offering doping substances," the spokeswoman said. No cyclists have been arrested, but police have yet to disclose who was being supplied with the drugs.