The other Spanish doping case: what’s up with Mosquera?

It took the UCI two weeks to get the results of Ezequiel Mosquera’s A sample from the Vuelta’s stage 18. Two and a half months later we’re still waiting for the results of the B sample. With the holiday madness in full swing, don’t expect an answer until 2011.

Meanwhile Mosquera’s new Vacansoleil team waits for a verdict. Peter Velits of HTC-Columbia and Joaquin Rodriguez of Katusha wait to see if they’re moving up to 2nd and 3rd on the Vuelta general classification. And the rest of the cycling world wonders just what the hydroxyethyl is going on.

UCI press officer Enrico Carpani told AP that Mosquera’s B sample is “still in preparation” and the investigation into the Spanish rider is ongoing — hey, that was back on November 6th. Talk about a masking agent — what’s behind this slow-poke justice, folks?

Is there an explanation for this glacial pace besides the general baseline incompetence of the UCI? Is there a shortage of sterile rubber gloves at the lab? Not enough white lab coats to go around? Everybody just too busy with Alberto Contador and meat-gate to bother with suspicious Spaniard number two?

Ya gotta wonder.

The UCI and WADA made plenty of noise in the press about pushing the Spanish Cycling Federation to make a call on El Pistolero. Meanwhile the case of brother Ezequiel takes a back seat.

Hey, this is the runner-up in a grand tour we’re talking about, not some guy who posted a good result in the Tour of Iceland. Two weeks for the A sample, three months — at best — for the B sample? Kwazy.

Did they lose the offending B sample? Are they searching the lab top-to-bottom for the little test-tubes? Did somebody give it to their kid to take to school for Show & Tell and lose it? Did Pat “hot air” McQuaid accidentally drink it thinking it was a cool new cocktail?

Hard to say. All we know is, in cycling the words “on-going investigation” mean forget about testing results for a long, long time.