Viva L'Italia! Viva L'Italia! Viva L'Italia!

catswilleatyou · **Posted:** Thu Nov 09, 2006 1:05 pm

Freakster Wrote:

suck my big fat american cock.

pollysix · **Joined:** Tue Oct 26, 2004 2:56 am **Posts:** 5174

FalconeSandro09 Wrote:

As much as I do love Italy...

d · **Posted:** Thu Nov 09, 2006 3:57 pm

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/4321918.html

Discovery Channel hires Basso
Armstrong's former team gets new lead rider

By DALE ROBERTSON
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

Although Ivan Basso's name may have been dragged through the mud, none of the dirt seems to have stuck. And so the Discovery Channel Cycling Team had no reservations about bringing the 28-year-old Italian aboard as its new leader.

A murky, convoluted Spanish drug scandal made Basso available to the American-sponsored, Belgium-run team that is owned in
part by seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong.

Armstrong was the only rider to finish ahead of Basso in the 2005 Tour de France.

Basso was banned from participating in last summer's Tour because his name was linked to Operation Puerto, an investigation of a Madrid doctor suspected of illegally helping elite athletes improve their performances.

Basso and Germany's Jan Ullrich, who also was thrown out of the race because his name surfaced in the same investigation, were the co-favorites to win the Tour until they were kicked out.

Floyd Landis of Team Phonak — a former Armstrong lieutenant with what was then the U.S. Postal Service team — kept the American string of Tour championships going, only to have it revealed afterward that he had failed an in-race drug test.

Landis' fate is now in the hands of U.S. anti-doping authorities, who are expected to hear his case in January.

Viva L'Italia! Viva L'Italia! Viva L'Italia!

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