95th Tour de France - Duenas PossessedBanned Substances
Further details emerge about Duenas: he was caught with banned substances

After being told of Moises Duenas’ positive anti-doping test carried out after the fourth stage of the Tour de France, Team Barloworld manager Claudio Corti and team doctor Massimiliano Mantovani accompanied the rider to the police station.

The scene at the Barloworld team bus earlier today. Photo © 2008 Fotoreporter Sirotti

As a consequence, the Team Barloworld management has discovered the results of the search carried out in the rider’s room and it has emerged that some banned medicines that were absolutely not supplied or prescribed by the team doctor were found in Moises Duenas’ room.

“I’ve asked the French police to fully investigate the case so that we can fully understand the seriousness of what Moises Duenas has done,” Corti said.

“We’re absolutely stunned by what is happening and by the behaviour of one of our riders. He seems to have secretly used banned substances, hiding everything from everybody else in the team.”

“It’s terribly disheartening but because the team is not involved in what has happened, we hope that the whole truth can rapidly emerge so that we can take the necessary action and that Duenas can fully accept responsibility for what he has done.”

Team Barloworld suspended Duenas immediately after being informed of his positive test and he did not start the 11th stage of the Tour de France.

Alberto Volpi. Photo © 2008 Fotoreporter Sirotti

Foix (FRA) - July 16, 2008

www.teambarloworld.com

A bad, bad day shocked Team Barloworld and confirmed how unlucky this Tour de France was for the squad directed by Claudio Corti . In the first morning the team received the info that Moisès Dueñas returned a non-negative sample after the time trial in Cholet. Such was the prelude of an awful day that continued with further misadventures during the race, so that directeur sportif Alberto Volpi and Valerio Tebaldi lost Paolo Longo Borghini and Felix Cardenas along the way. After Mauricio Soler's abandon, the team is strongly decimated and just five riders remain in the race.

 "We have to go on and honour the race anyway" , Alberto Volpi stated.

Today's eleventh stage was likely to be characterized by a long breakaway, and it is exactly what happened. After several attempts from the start, a 13-men group - including Filippo Pozzato (Liquigas) Alessandro Ballan (Lampre), Fabian Wegmann (Gerolsteiner) and Kurt-Asle Arvesen (CSC) - managed to gain some advantage and were able to stay clear for the whole day.
In the finale Arvesen, Elmiger (Ag2R) and Ballan left the breakaway companions, and were protagonists of a close sprint edged by the Norwegian National Champion, ahead of Elmiger and Ballan.

The fate played Team Barloworld another bad joke during the race, with Paolo Longo Borghini and Felix Cardenas forced to leave the race. The two were involved in the same crash, just after the feeding zone, but Longo Borghini's injury immediately appeared the most serious: in fact the Italian rider suffered an uncompound fracture to his right collarbone, and was hospitalized in St.Girond. The Colombian climber got back on his bike instead, but was forced to withdrawal at 50 km to go, because of pains to his left thigh, that swelled a lot after the impact on the ground.

The Tour goes on tomorrow, with the 12th stage, Lavelanet-Narbonne, that could favour brave escapees once again. But, more importantly, tomorrow will be another, and hopefully different, day for Team Barloworld, that really need to forget such an horrible one.

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