CSC team manager Bjarne Riis admitted the future of Ivan Basso could now be in the hands of lawyers after he was suspended.
Teams begin to get rid of those figuring in the doping scandal.
STRASBOURG: CSC team manager Bjarne Riis admitted the future of Ivan Basso could now be in the hands of lawyers after he suspended the Italian star from his Tour de France lineup here Friday.
A day before Basso was due to begin his bid to succeed Lance Armstrong, the 28-year-old paid the price for his name being among those on a list of suspected blood dopers in Spain.
Basso, the recent Tour of Italy winner and the Tour de France runner-up last year, was said to be devastated when Riis told him of the decision on Friday morning.
A series of crisis meetings between Tour organisers and team managers came in the wake of earlier news that Jan Ullrich, the 1997 winner from Germany, had been suspended by his T-Mobile team for the same reason. His Spanish teammate Oscar Sevilla was also suspended, as was another Spaniard with his name on the now infamous list — AG2R rider Francisco Mancebo.
CSC manager Riis, a winner of the Tour in 1996 when he finished ahead of Ullrich, admitted Basso’s future both as a rider and as a member of his team was now uncertain. “His future in the team depends on what is going to happen next,” Riis added. “He has to go home and take the case up with his lawyer. Then we can decide something.”
But in the absence of conclusive proof, he would not condemn the man who has twice finished on the Tour de France podium. “We need proof. We have to be careful saying things that are not 100 percent sure,” he warned.
“The investigation is going on, but how can I say he’s lied to me when I cannot prove it.”
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