Impudente, Svergognato, sfacciato — according to the google translation they’re all Italian for brazen. So throw all three down on Dr. Evil, Michele Ferrari, best friends with Lance Armstrong and scourge of the cycling world.
The man mentioned an average of 2.4 times per page in the 202 page USADA Reasoned Decision, he just keeps brazenly training riders despite the outrage. The guy is banned for life yet just keeps cashing the big checks and giving everyone except his clients the big middle finger.
Just last year Filippo Pozzato, Michele Scarponi and Giovanni Visconti were all given a meaningless, off-season three month ban for working with Ferrari. Not a whole lot of effective, enforceable deterrents working against Ferrari in the home county.
Apparently an Italian journalist and photographer got wind of one of his Vertical Climb camps and caught him in some old Lance-Era US Postal gear riding along and training a few gran fondo riders. He did mix in a pair blue and pink Lampre shorts which is a true fashion faux pas for the stylish Italian who loves to dress well for his many court appearances.
There’s something amusing and revealing about Ferrari in that US Postal kit. It shows he still thinks on some level that it’s 2004 and nothing has changed in the world of cycling.
To Ferrari, EPO remains no more dangerous than orange juice and he sees no reason whatsoever to change his methods. He’s in a time-warp and continues to trade on his Lance celebrity with a bunch gran fondo guys wanting to go all Ricardo Ricco on the last climb. It’s almost sad, really, like the 55 year old who hangs out at the nightclub single’s bar thinking he’s still hip and cool.
He was working on his favorite Monzuno climb and the cyclingnews article had him riding off into the mist like the mysterious fantom that he has always been. Next to Ferrari, his Spanish Puerto rival Dr Fuentes looks like a pathetic amateur.
You could look at destroying Ferrari as the final act in cleaning up pro cycling. His famous client Armstrong is now infamous and stripped of his seven maillot jaunes, his millions in endorsements and his reputation. UCI hack president Patrick McQuaid, who ran the UCI during this mess and who refused to clean it up was just booted out of office. New UCI head Brian Cookson is already working with WADA on some kind of Truth & Reconciliation so that cycling can finally and definitively move on.
If only we could now be rid of the brazen, impudente Ferrari forever. How sweet that would be to never see his name again.
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