In the wake of recent news linking Jan Ullrich to specific bags of blood in the Operacion Puerto case, Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes has issued a public statement admitting a severe lack of code name creativity.
"Si, I am really not that creative when it comes to code names. I never have been. If that is a crime then I am certainly guilty," said the beleaguered Spanish physician to a group of journalists in Madrid.Recent "code names" released for the bags of blood linked to Jan Ullrich, arguably the most popular cyclist in Europe at the time, were "Jan", "Number 1" and "Hijo Rudicio." The latter code name can be translated as "Son of Rudy", a possible reference to Ullrich's longtime coach and confidante Rudy Pevenage.
"When I first started doing this whole blood collecting thing, I just put the rider's names right on the bags. But then someone pointed out that it probably wasn't a good idea to do that so I started trying to think of other ways to identify the bags and the riders. As it turns out, that was WAY harder than I thought it would be. Muy dificil," admitted Fuentes when questioned about the origin of the names.
"I even spaced out and wrote 'Jan' on one of the bags, but I thought I could play it off that it was for former 'Airwolf' star Jan Michael Vincent. That one didn't go over so well in Spain. I guess some of the Spanish Guardia Civil don't have the DVD's yet," continued the facilitator of perhaps the largest doping scandal in the history of cycling and apparent TV helicopter action-drama fan. Rumors of bags labeled "Ernest Borgnine" are unsubstantiated.
Additionally, the names of certain riders' dogs are allegedly printed on a number of the bags confiscated from Fuentes' apartment in Madrid. For example, the name "Birillo" is supposedly written on a bag that insiders have linked to Ivan Basso because it corresponds to his dog's name. Basso has denied these rumors and has stated that many Italians have named animals after the beloved Birillo Robot. Basso has also denied rumors that he is a robot after he destroyed the competition in the 2006 Giro.
"When I was younger I named my dog "Dog" so that should tell you something about my naming creativity. But I was impressed at the names that some of the riders had come up with for their dogs so I decided that might be a good code system. Well, once again...not so much. Nada mucho. Who knew so many many people were aware of these guys' pet names? Yeesh, I mean...get a life tifosi," continued Dr. Fuentes.
Yet another example of poor code naming is the stash of blood labeled "Buffalo" which allegedly corresponds to Jose Enrique Guitierrez. The rider widely known by the nickname "Buffalo" both for his large physique and labored riding style, finished a truly remarkable 2nd in the mountainous 2006 Giro d'Italia and is reputed to be a client of Fuentes.
"Once again, totally my bad on that code name. Just a really poor choice on my part," concluded Dr. Fuentes as he prepared to leave the press conference. "I sincerely apologize to all the riders who were so easily linked to this investigation by my lack of creative code naming skills. If I had known that these code names were so easy to track, I would have just labeled them with the athlete's names right on them. In retrospect, I mean really..."Son of Rudy", "Buffalo"...I'm really embarrassed that I was so deficient in my attempts to cover all of this up. I'm a doctor for crying out loud. I should have been better than that. Oh well.""But hey...no one has been charged yet so it's all okay for the time being at least. I'll talk to you guys again after the Swiss and the Germans finish with Number 1...er I mean Hijo Rudicio...d'oh...ahh forget it. Call me when something actually happens in this case."
* Late Breaking News: Insiders have reported that Ivan Basso has recently changed his dog's name to "Bjarne."
3 comments:
granted i am on pain meds*, but this whole thing seems a bit too simple. a millionare doctor does not have a computer and a simple shareware program that can encrypt codes [names] and make barcodes? all doping in cycling aside [blah, blah, blah], ether:
a] doctor numbskull is lazy and lame and he truly did use pet names as codes for those he doped, instead of barcodes.
b] someone was trying to make it as obvious as possible who they wanted out of the TDF and cycling [simply because they continued to kick their french arses, oops, my bad]
c] all of the above.
something has to be a arye with the case and or evidence, when a spanish federal judge drops the entire case. i guess we will have to wait for the oliver stone movie to get the real inflated out of control conspiracy theory.
on a side note, what ever happened to the olympics? was i absent the day they decided professionals could compete? [i mean besides the soviets] the olympics should be an amateur only event, now that is real head to head competition and fun to watch.
*[after a season ending augering into the ground at 30mph+, because 2 freds touched wheels in front of me and went down. i did get some new cool Ti parts out of it though, as in a plate on my collarbone.]
Pain Meds are rad. Broken collar-bones...not so much. Sorry Blue.
OP's hitting the fan now though. Crazy stuff.
Interesting comment on the Olympics. Not sure what happened there either.
Good post.
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