So, we’ve got more “guilty until proven innocent” crap coming out of the ASO’s Christian Prudhomme, who says he doesn’t want any riders who were named in the Operacion Puerto doping investigation to take part in this year’s Tour de France. In an interview with L’Equipe, Prodhomme said, “I have asked the teams not to use those named riders.” He went on to say, “This will not be a unilateral decision. During the Ardennes week I will talk to all the teams. Everyone who is committed to this course must do everything to stop the doping. There must be solidarity.”

Prudhomme would also prefer it if named riders weren’t participating in the Ardennes Classics, either, but says he realizes that there is “too little time” between his announcement today and the races. He confirmed that he had spoken to Discovery DS Johan Bruyneel specifically about Ivan Basso.

This is virtually the same strategy the ASO employed last year after Puerto broke during the Giro d’Italia - in essence, it was the teams who had to disqualify their own riders, rather than the ASO being responsible for not letting the riders race. It’s a clever if backhanded tactic, leaving riders with no apparent legal recourse against the Tour organization. It shouldn’t be this way - it shouldn’t be guilty until proven innocent, there shouldn’t be this need to be cagey about how organizers restrict who’s at their races… But that’s the way it is, for now, at least.

At the moment I’m just annoyed - and not just because Ivan Basso is My Boyfriend - but I’m preparing myself to be really steamed if this crap keeps going. (And who among us thinks it won’t keep going?) Ugh, it’s gonna be a long summer.

Oh, and here’s just one more reason I like the Podium Cafe - in the comments, Chris says that there’s still plenty of time to get this sorted before the Tour in July: “After all, Basso agreed to DNA testing, so he could make ASO look arbitrary if they don’t clear him if he submits a DNA sample and it either doesn’t match the birillo blood, or the birillo blood isn’t tainted.

“ASO is on its own here, and it’s mostly about Basso … . Basso has a rather open-arm invitation to come back to the Giro. He also has been cleared by his home federation (for now anyway, which is a muddled Italian version of closure). Surely ASO can’t exclude Contador, right? So the line between OP victims and dopers is in there someplace. IMHO Basso’s home-country “exoneration” means he can race, and if he can race he can do the Tour, and Prudhomme should read the Scarlet Letter and stop acting like such an asshole.”

Can you see me nodding furiously in agreement? Good.