Italian Editorial: Why is Mazzoleni Allowed to Ride?

By Jessica | Permalink |

1 comment | June 1st, 2007 | Trackback

The husband spent the other day busily translating a cycling editorial he found, and it’s interesting enough that I’m sharing it with you. It addresses the fact that Eddy Mazzoleni remains in the Giro - heck, was allowed to ride in the first place - even though he’s in some legal difficulty at the moment regarding some phone calls where he talks about EPO. Why was he allowed to race when others who are just under suspicion were not? It’s a damned good question.

You can find the original article here.

The hands of anti-doping on the Giro of Mazzoleni

By Cristiano Gatti, Wednesday, May 30, 2007, 7 a.m.
Our reporter in Lienz, Austria

Certainly, it would be great to speak happily of the stupendous victory of Garzelli in Austria, and then of the epic battle that awaits us on the Zoncolan today. Unfortunately, the curse of these damned times prevents it: we are also gambling with this Giro. Just as this Giro fades, sold to the world as the first Giro of the new era, it seriously risks being won by a racer that should not even be in the race (and if he doesn’t win, he can easily arrive on the podium). Obviously I am talking of Eddy Mazzoleni, now still at the center of two criminal inquests for doping, which are built on two unequivocal wiretapped phone calls (one speaks of EPO use).

Let’s be clear: this is not aiming to attract prosecutorial action against Mazzoleni. I send him my best wishes to get past these troubles triumphantly. Unfortunately, the case collides with a question much more important than Mazzoleni: it collides with a bigger question of principles. Even an idiot understands it. At the start in Sardinia, the Giro made certain teams exclude cyclists only suspected of doping (in this case: Gontchar, Plaza, Zaballa, Hamilton, Jaksche). Strangely, it passed over Mazzoleni: the one in the most trouble. The motives? Go figure. Certainly the Giro boss Zomegnan cannot pretend to have forgotten it: this and other newspapers duly reminded him once again on the run-up to the race. But he deemed it unimportant. He made no pretenses. Ostrich Award 2007.

Here is the result: the Giro of the accountants, the Giro of the record viewers (five million tuned in for the climb up the Tre Cime di Lavaredo), is seriously at risk of ending in the dustbin. A catastrophe? Let’s wait to see. Let’s pretend that Mazzoleni wins, or that he at least arrives second, then let’s talk. Anyhow, the question of principles counts even if he ends up last. The issue of principles raises the simplest question for Giro boss Zomegnan and to those other teams in the race, so mindful one year ago in throwing out Basso and Ullrich from the Tour, in the age of only suspects. This is the question: Why are the others out and Mazzoleni is in?

God willing the question finally seems to interest the Italian Olympic Committee’s (CONI) anti-doping prosecutor Ettore Torri. The unrelenting Torquemada to Basso and Scarponi (legitimately, it is clear), the sporting magistrate found nothing to act on regarding the wiretapped calls that implicate Mazzoleni. Now, as he explained in an interview, he says he is ready to move on it. Strange, very strange: he moves only after Mazzoleni has climbed to second place on the classification, but above all only after a segment of the press feels it must expose how heinous this unjust justice is.

Compared to the other preemptively excluded riders, Mazzoleni is above the law, but why? One need not tire of posing this question. Never tire in the face of unjust justice. What did the CONI prosecutor say to the public: as he moved against Basso and Scarponi, much sooner than the ordinary justice system reaches its conclusions, why isn’t anyone confronting Mazzoleni, even if he is only able to spur an outcry for a hearing? By now everyone understands them, the mechanics of justice: even if certain wiretapped calls are not sufficient in a criminal hearing, these same calls can be enough for a sporting hearing. Like never before, why has sporting justice stalled? Will he not prosecute Basso because he is the most popular? And to the team directors: won’t it be that we excluded Basso from the Tour because he is unbeatable, meanwhile we did not exclude Mazzoleni from the Giro because he is beatable?

There is only one way to sweep away this suspected malevolence: to apply justice evenly. Torri explains that he only received a little material on Mazzoleni: one needs to believe him. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. Then, however, let’s see what he concludes. During the delay, the sands of time are all the Giro’s: one wonders if on the podium in Milan there will finish someone who only a couple of weeks later will be called out for doping. What would Angelo “Ostrich” Zomegnan say: would he still talk of a clean Giro?