By Antonio J. Salmerón
Joseba Beloki, who has finished three times in the top three overall at the Tour de France, will announce Friday morning his future plans. Beloki, without a team, did not compete in 2007
The Basque rider whose name has been linked allegedly to the ongoing Operación Puerto said to the Meta2Mil newspaper, "I am not sanctioned, but the silly thing is that I cannot race because no one wants to sign me. I do not understand anything, but the worst thing is that I never wanted to leave cycling."
The 34 year-old rider has began racing as a professional in 1998, when he debuted at age 26 with the Euskaltel-Euskadi. He's ridden with Festina, and ONCE-Eroski. Beloki finished in the second place in the 2002 Tour de France and third in 2000 and in 2001. In 2003 he suffered his famous crash, in which he was seriously injured, in the ninth stage during the descent off La Côte De La Rochette.
In 2006, when Beloki returned to the Liberty Seguros team after a fleeting passage through Brioches La Boulangere, his name appeared in an Operación Puerto report and he was excluded from the Tour in 2006.
