The updated podium from the 2005 Tour de France

Remember that guy Jan Ullrich who used to finish second (or third) to Armstrong all the time baring that one time he won the Tour in 1997 when Armstrong wasn’t racing? Well, here on February 9, 2012 he has been found guilty of doping offenses related to the 2006 Operation Puerto investigation and had all the results he achieved since May 2005 annuled after the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld a UCI appeal into the cyclist. In the biggest case of “so what?” since Dennis Menchov was awarded a podium spot for the 2010 Tour on Monday, Ullrich was also banned from the sport until August 22, 2013 — not for life as the UCI had hoped — though they might have well just banned him until tomorrow afternoon given the difference it will make to a rider who has been retired for over half a decade.

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It’s been a good day for anti-doping as this morning the tortoise in the relay race in the case against Alberto Contador that has seen the baton pass from the UCI to WADA to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) finally crossed the finishing line with a decision on the guilt of the beef eating Spaniard. The hammer of justice came thumping down with a “guilty, guilty, guilty” verdict and a two year ban, which by the mathematical calculations of CAS, expires on August 5th, of this year.

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When Francesco Schettino, the captain of the doomed Costa Concordia claimed that he “tripped and fell into a life boat” which took off before he had the chance to get out, his excuse went down in history as the second worst/best (depending on how you look at it) excuse of all time behind only that of Alberto Contador who once claimed his positive test for the banned substance Clenbuterol was the work of a tainted piece of meat he eat during a Tour de France rest day.

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