Newsgroup: it.sport.ciclismo
Titolo: Da una nuova recente intervista :-)

...
The next stage, aged 18, was a three-week trial with a professional team 
in Italy. And it was there that she encountered the kind of behaviour 
which has put men's cycling under such a cloud this summer. "I went out 
training with the girl I was staying with," she said, "and the team 
manager came along to get an idea of how we were going. We met up again 
later that afternoon and he came around with a white jar with some 
liquid in it. I said, 'What the hell is that?' He said, 'Don't worry, 
they're not for you. They're for the other girl. She's not very strong 
and she needs some amino-acids to build her up.' The girl was quite 
happy to inject them into herself.
"I just could not believe it. The whole mentality was something I hated. 
A body isn't made for having big infusions of acids or sugars or 
anti-oxidants. If you eat healthily and you take vitamins and minerals, 
if you're taking care of yourself, why should you ever get to the stage 
where you have to give yourself a massive boost? I made it very clear 
that I thought what she was doing was totally flawed. That's always been 
my stance on those performance-enhancing methods - even though they're 
not drugs. And when it comes to drugs, I want to win races and know I've 
won them because I was the strongest and because of my hard work. If I 
was faced with a serious question about whether to take drugs, I would 
leave the sport. I can enjoy cycling and going for rides without a 
number on my back. I don't have to be in a race to enjoy that."
had she ever been beaten in a big race by a woman she suspected of 
doping? "I know there are a few riders with question marks over them," 
she replied, and spoke of losing a World Cup race in Montreal to a 
Canadian rider who was subsequently accused of taking EPO. "But women's 
cycling doesn't have the same history as men's cycling. We didn't have 
riders taking drugs to ride the Tour de France in the 1920s or six-day 
riders using amphetamines just to stay awake in the 1960s. There really 
was no women's racing scene until it picked up in the 1990s. And we 
don't have that merry-go-round of yesterday's riders being today's team 
directors."
Nevertheless her successful multinational Univega-Raleigh women's team 
is feeling the effect of the bad publicity drawn by Operacion Puerto and 
the disgrace of Floyd Landis. "We're trying to sort out sponsorship for 
the next two years with people who are doubting whether it's even worth 
putting money into cycling. So my team manager is having to fight quite 
hard and say that women's cycling isn't in the same state as men's 
cycling, it's actually very clean and a good platform."
She has been tested "about 15 times" this season, in and out of 
competition, and believes that a positive test should lead to a life ban 
from major competitions. "When a person makes a decision about taking 
drugs, the downside has to be so bad that she can't even think it's 
worth it. But if the consequence is a six-month ban and then a return to 
racing, what's that to be scared about?"
...
-- 
http://modesta.biciticino.ch
Il sito dedicato alla giovane ciclista lituana Modesta Vzesniauskaite

 racing, what's that to be scared about?"
It's not about being afraid, but it is about trashing riders careers with
these death sentences, which many times they have little say, unless they
can hire the best legal experts. They didn't murder anyone, this is just a
sport, it's entertainment, so yes, they should be given another chance and
the benifit of the doubt in some cases, but I don't believe in the current
system anyway. I think it's a death sentence in and of itself. :-(
B-