The International Cycling Union released a list of 19 teams approved for Professional Continental status for 2010 on Wednesday. Not on the list, the Placebo Galicia team.
Reports from the UCI seem to indicate that they used the Spanish Placebo team last year merely as a control substance to determine if the real cycling teams were having any effect, positive or negative.
A spokesman for the UCI said, “the Placebo team has no substance and no remedial value. Our tests are finished, therefore, we have no further need.”
Placebo’s director Sportif Alvaro Pino was outraged. “To say we are ineffective is an insult. We are a cycling team, not some pharmacological pill for them to play with,” said Pino.
Either way, losing Placebo will be tough for many cycling fans to swallow.
[…] the UCI used this squad to test the difference in fan reaction between a real pro cycling team and a fake one with no active ingredients. Having previously announced the test was over, the inclusion of the […]