Now that we are at five (may be more) former USPS riders who have either been busted for doping or admitted to it, where does that put them in the race for dirtiest team in cycling?
Ha! since there are teams this year that have more then 5 positives in one year I wouldn’t be putting USPS on your list as “dirtiest ever” and in fact looking back at the whole scale doping in the mid to late 90s by teams like Festina, Gewiss and TVM there is very little indication that UPSP had a systematic doping program like they did. Even Frankie and the anonymous source said they never saw LA doping.
It’s hard to tell who is the dirtiest, but assuming that USPS were dirty then they were one of the smartest teams, since most of these busts happened after the riders left the team. Wasn’t Floyd the 10th Phonak doping case in something like three years? That might make them either one of the dirtiest or (more likely, I suspect) the stupidest. I’m of the opinion that handling all these drugs and getting all your levels correct throughout the year is probably a very difficult thing to do, and if one day you forget something or use the wrong amount of something (like a masking agent) then you might get busted. Maybe Floyd made a mistake like that last winter, then withdrew some blood and put it back during the Tour, who knows. If you’re gonna be dirty then you’ve got to be smart.
Thank you Bloke for helping me decide a new signature line…
What about Ulrich and the boys…just good old german stock or good old east german ‘engineering’?
Except Zabel (when there), cause Zabel rules!!
B