Spanish team affirms its “zero tolerance” commitment to doping infractions
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A Caja Rural rider on the attack.(Image credit: Fabrice Lambert)
A Caja Rural rider en route(Image credit: Cyclinginside.com)
The management of the Caja Rural team have announced that they have released Víctor de la Parte and Guillermo Lana from their contracts after the pair were implicated in the Andorra doping investigation that came to light earlier this week. The two riders were among 42 cyclists implicated in the investigation, which also involved a number of athletes.
According to a statement released by the Spanish pro continental team, both riders “have been willing to do all they can to clear up and resolve this situation as quickly as possible”. The statement added that the team will take “whatever disciplinary measures that might be open to it.”
It also added that the team’s ethical code “is based on the principle foundation of zero tolerance to doping and we are inflexible on that point… The team hopes for a rapid resolution of the investigation that is under way.”
According to reports from the Catalan police and Spain’s Guardia Civil, for the past year the investigating team had been tracking sales of doping products through an online pharmacy located in the Andorran town of Encamp and the subsequent trafficking of those products. Among the other riders implicated in the investigation are Ángel Gómez Gómez (ex-Saunier Duval and Fuji-Servetto), Enrique Mata (ex-Footon Servetto) and former Kelme pro Adolfo García Quesada.
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Peter Cossins has written about professional cycling since 1993 and is a contributing editor to Procycling. He is the author of The Monuments: The Grit and the Glory of Cycling's Greatest One-Day Races (Bloomsbury, March 2014) and has translated Christophe Bassons' autobiography, A Clean Break (Bloomsbury, July 2014).
