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Puerto: Rocco backs Ivan Basso

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22.08.2006/ US website bicirace.com reported that Renato Di Rocco, president of the Italian Cycling  Federation, backed Ivan Basso by saying: "From the documents i have seen, there are not sufficient elements to accuse (Basso).

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Ivan Basso during the Tirreno-Adriatico (picture: Cyclingheroes)

Two weeks before the hearing of Ivan Basso by the Italian Olympic comittee, the president of the Italian Cycling federation (FCI) Renato Rocco continued to back Basso and questioned the credibility of Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes. Rocco already commented in July: "We are standing with Basso, if there is evidence of wrongdoing then we will be the first to penalize him but i don't think this will happen." Basso was one of 58 riders who were suspended by their teams after the UCI received a list with clients of doctor Fuentes.
 
The Italian Cycling federation received the documents about the Puerto case on August 3 and according to bicirace.com Rocco said: "From the documents i have seen, there are not sufficient elements to accuse (Basso)." Di Rocco questioned the validity of the paperwork the Italian federation was given by the Guardia Civil. The FCI president that Fuentes could be fabricating his relationship with Ivan Basso. Rocco stated "I believe that Fuentes is boasting the relation with Basso" and continued by saying: "This serves to make himself more important in certain circles".
About the fax were Ivan Bassos was written on by Eufemiano Fuentes, Rocco said: "This fax we knew of before and according to me it serves to show that Basso can't be Birillo, the number 2 and the other times be Ivan Basso. Who uses codes, will always use codes".
 
Ivan Basso could still be in trouble and even if he is allowed to race again he might have to look for another team. In an interview with Danish newspaper Politiken, Basso's team manager Bjarne Riis told the newspaper today: "Ivan must prove his innocence to us," and continued by saying: "If it's shown that Basso had a liaison with Fuentes, if he lied to me and betrayed the team and the values which we defend on this team, he is finished at CSC."
 
Meanwhile the French newspaper L'equipe published a story on Sunday that the UCI will release another 50 names of ridersin the Fuentes scandal  in the coming days. It's not known if the UCI is going to publish the names of the riders on the list or give them directly to the teams and the organizers of the Vuelta Espana, which will start next saturday. L'equipe wrote that the 50 riders are racing for 14 different teams of which 7 are pro-tour teams.
 
UCI president Pat McQuaid told L'equipe: "It will be responsibility of each team to decide whether or not their rider or riders should be excluded from competition," McQuaid told the paper. "Not all riders were involved to the same degree and some of them may not necessarily need to be punished."
 
In an earlier interview, McQuaid told US based website velonews.com:"Our legal department is working through the documents. Some pages have gone out. The Basso pages have gone to Italy and the Ullrich stuff to Switzerland," he said. "It's been a huge amount of work involved in it. It's a 500-page document with names all over the place. It's a police report, it's not like the documents we are used to working with. It's new ground. It's taken three lawyers almost working full-time to get through this."
 
On Tuesday afternoon Pat McQuaid had an interview with cyclingnews.com. McQuaid said in the interview that there are no new names on the Fuentes list.
 
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