Cycling: Pat McQuaid stresses the suspension today of Tour de France race favourites Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso and Francisco Mancebo does not automatically mean the riders are guilty of doping but, as Union Cycliste Internationale president, warns he will take a firm stance if it is proved they took drugs.
"Anybody that gets involved in doping will be found out and will be thrown out from cycling," says the Irishman, who took the top job at cycling's world governing body last September.
"We have the strictest rules of all sports as it is, in relation to the sanctions, and in the ProTour [cycling's top division] if any of these riders are eventually proved guilty, you could virtually say that their career is over.
"They will not just get the two years suspension implemented through the Wada code, they will also get an additional two years expulsion from ProTour teams. So they are facing a four-year sentence out of the sport, something which will effectively finish their careers.
"This is hard for cycling," he concedes, "but I have to look at the positive side. It has to be a message to all the other riders that no matter how clever you think you are, you will eventually get caught out."
McQuaid, though, underlines a need for caution until all facts emerge.
"No riders have been sacked," he warns, "they have all been suspended until this affair is over. I have to stress that everything we are dealing with at the moment is allegations. Everybody is innocent at the moment, until we go through a process which proves them guilty.
"However, if these allegations are eventually found to be true, it means that we lose these guys out of the sport. At that point in time, I won't really have much sympathy for them."
McQuaid also believes harsh penalties will await any manager who is found to have encouraged systematic doping within their teams and said they too would face lengthy suspensions.
"Yes, you could take them out of the sport for good," he says. "We have that rule currently in there, as far as I know, and if through the information we are getting we find out that that has been happening, you can be sure that the managers involved will not be involved in cycling any more."
The scandal began on May 23rd when controversial doctor Eufemiano Fuentes - the then-manager of the Liberty Seguros Wurth team Manolo Saiz - and three others were arrested by police in Madrid on suspicion of involvement in a major doping network.
A subsequent search of Fuentes' clinic by Operactión Puerto investigators uncovered large supplies of doping products, frozen blood, and transfusion equipment believed to have been used in the blood doping of riders and other sports people.
Ullrich's name and that of team-mate Oscar Sevilla had been leaked to the El Pais newspaper and the Spanish radio Cadena SER, along with those of Basso, Mancebo, and up to 33 others. In all, it is suspected that 58 riders may be implicated in some form. A number of athletes from soccer, athletics, tennis and basketball circles are also rumoured to be on a wider list but have not been named.
McQuaid is "saddened, but not surprised" by what has happened ahead of the Tour de France, which begins tomorrow with a 7.1 kilometre prologue time trial in Strasbourg.
"I'm sad that some of our top riders find themselves implicated in a doping affair but, on the other hand, if they are eventually proven guilty then cycling is better off without them - we must insist on a clean sport," he says.
