Italy carries anti-doping 'too far'
Updated: 2007-09-18 14:19
MILAN - Italy has been at the forefront of the battle against doping this year but cyclist Alessandro Petacchi and pole vaulter Giuseppe Gibilisco believe the crusade has gone too far.
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Both have been cleared to compete by their national bodies despite the Italian Olympic Committee's (CONI) anti-doping chief Ettore Torri accusing them of doping offences.
Torri has been busily pursuing suspected cheats, most notably pushing through a ban on cyclist Ivan Basso in May after the 2006 Giro d'Italia winner admitted to attempted doping and his involvement in Spain's Operacion Puerto scandal.
CONI has been so determined to clean up Italian sport it has investigated possible doping by fencers, water skiers, beach volleyball players and even a golfer, who used a hair loss treatment which was banned because it could be a masking agent.
With Petacchi and Gibilisco, however, Torri has hit resistance.
Petacchi tested for restricted substance salbutamol at May's Giro d'Italia but argued it had come from his asthma inhaler and that any use above the permitted levels was human error.
Torri rejected the defence and requested a one-year ban but the Italian Cycling Federation absolved the 33-year-old rider.
Incensed by the decision, Torri has gone to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to have the ban reinstated with a decision expected within four months.
Petacchi, forced to miss July's Tour de France because of the doping allegations, won back-to-back stages in the Tour of Spain last week and spoke of his relief at being able to race.
"It's been a horrible summer. Hopefully, it'll all be over soon, we'll be able to move on and my career will continue," the Milram rider told reporters.
Torri has rejected accusations that he is so obsessed with doping that he is hounding a man who is just an asthma sufferer and not a cheat.
"I am only doing my job," Torri said. "My duty is to pursue violations of anti-doping rules and this by Petacchi is a violation."
Gibilisco's case is just as complex.
The pole vaulter, who won gold at the 2003 world championships in Paris and bronze at the Athens Olympics a year later, won his appeal last week against a two-year doping ban imposed by the Italian Athletics Federation (FIDAL).
FIDAL banned him in July after a request from Torri, who said the 28-year-old was implicated in a long-running Italian police investigation into doping in sport.
The police probe, which began in 2004, has focused on the relationship between sportsmen and doctor Carlo Santuccione, who is alleged to have supplied them with banned substances.
However, an appeal commission lifted the ban because Gibilisco had never failed a doping test. Torri again said he might go to the CAS.
"For me it is like coming back to life," Gibilisco told Gazzetta dello Sport after winning his appeal.
He also recounted his original reaction to the ban.
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