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Sports / Off the Field
Italy carries anti-doping 'too far'
(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-09-18 14:19
MILAN - Italy has been at the forefront of the battle against doping this
year but cyclist Alessandro Petacchi and pole vaulter Giuseppe Gibilisco
believe the crusade has gone too far.
Team Milram's Alessandro Petacchi of Italy crosses the finish line to win
stage twelve of the Tour of Spain "La Vuelta" cycling race between
Algemesi and Hellin September 13, 2007.? [Reuters]
Both have been cleared to compete by their national bodies despite the
Italian Olympic Committee's (CONI) anti-doping chief Ettore Torri
accusing them of doping offences.
Torri has been busily pursuing suspected cheats, most notably pushing
through a ban on cyclist Ivan Basso in May after the 2006 Giro d'Italia
winner admitted to attempted doping and his involvement in Spain's
Operacion Puerto scandal.
CONI has been so determined to clean up Italian sport it has investigated
possible doping by fencers, water skiers, beach volleyball players and
even a golfer, who used a hair loss treatment which was banned because it
could be a masking agent.
With Petacchi and Gibilisco, however, Torri has hit resistance.
Petacchi tested for restricted substance salbutamol at May's Giro
d'Italia but argued it had come from his asthma inhaler and that any use
above the permitted levels was human error.
Torri rejected the defence and requested a one-year ban but the Italian
Cycling Federation absolved the 33-year-old rider.
Incensed by the decision, Torri has gone to the Court of Arbitration for
Sport (CAS) to have the ban reinstated with a decision expected within
four months.
Petacchi, forced to miss July's Tour de France because of the doping
allegations, won back-to-back stages in the Tour of Spain last week and
spoke of his relief at being able to race.
"It's been a horrible summer. Hopefully, it'll all be over soon, we'll be
able to move on and my career will continue," the Milram rider told
reporters.
Torri has rejected accusations that he is so obsessed with doping that he
is hounding a man who is just an asthma sufferer and not a cheat.
"I am only doing my job," Torri said. "My duty is to pursue violations of
anti-doping rules and this by Petacchi is a violation."
Gibilisco's case is just as complex.
The pole vaulter, who won gold at the 2003 world championships in Paris
and bronze at the Athens Olympics a year later, won his appeal last week
against a two-year doping ban imposed by the Italian Athletics Federation
(FIDAL).
FIDAL banned him in July after a request from Torri, who said the
28-year-old was implicated in a long-running Italian police investigation
into doping in sport.
The police probe, which began in 2004, has focused on the relationship
between sportsmen and doctor Carlo Santuccione, who is alleged to have
supplied them with banned substances.
However, an appeal commission lifted the ban because Gibilisco had never
failed a doping test. Torri again said he might go to the CAS.
"For me it is like coming back to life," Gibilisco told Gazzetta dello
Sport after winning his appeal.
He also recounted his original reaction to the ban.
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