Spanish Federation smacks Mosquera. Saving Contador?

//Spanish Federation smacks Mosquera. Saving Contador?

Spanish Federation smacks Mosquera. Saving Contador?

Not even the locals like Mosquera now.

Poor Ezequiel. The man with the biblical sounding name was hammered by his own Spanish Cycling Federation. There’s a shocker.

Acting completely out of character and contrary to a recent history of going easy on doping cases (Hola senor Contador!), the governing body smacked Mosquera hard with a two year suspension for hydroxyethyl starch.

To make matters even worse for the 2010 Vuelta a España runner-up, they refused to backdate it or give him credit for the whopping fourteen months he’s been off the bike waiting for his case to be resolved.

While the UCI and the Spanish Federation kept him on ice, he was unable to race for his new Vacansoleil squad. We almost feel sorry for the guy. He got the Anti-Contador treatment.

Having just turned 36, he will be a wizened old 38 when his ban ends. Not many riders like Jens Voigt and Chris Horner have the talent to perform at a high level when you’ve got that much mileage on the odometer.

TO top thing off, Mosquera then got bitter and went after his own regional sports government — in particular José Ramón Lete Lasa — for what he saw as their attempt to destroy his career.

“In the end the only person to turn their back on me was him and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back of all this garbage. Of all the blows that I’ve received, this was the one I was least expecting.”

Mosquera summed things up with a classic “they had knives out for me” statement and said that retirement was likely. No free drinks for life for him in the bars in Galicia.

“I always said I would retire riding a bike, but with the sanction of two years and already being 35, you have to be realistic,” he said, according to Marca.

Twisted Spoke maintains that the timing and severity of Mosquera’s punishment is no accident. SPanish Federation went hard on him the same week that the Contador case was presented for a final verdict before the COurt for Arbitration in Sport.

The Spanish Federation made a big show to say, “look, we didn’t let Contador off and we’ve not lax on punishing athletes.” It was a way to make their case in Lausanne Switzerland look just a bit stronger. They were willing to use Mosquera as a sacrificial pawn to do anything to improve the chances of Contador winning his case.

By |2019-02-03T16:15:26-08:00November 27th, 2011|Uncategorized|0 Comments

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