Cycling's top official has blasted defending road world champion Paolo Bettini and the Italian federation for declining to sign an anti-doping code, although it won't prevent the rider from competing at the World Championships.
"I feel very angry and very annoyed," Pat McQuaid, president of the International Cycling Union, said yesterday.
The anti-doping document was drawn up before this year's Tour de France but it has no legal status and no sanctions for riders who don't sign it. Riders who do sign promise that they won't be involved in doping and that they had no nothing to do with the Spanish doping scandal known as Operation Puerto. If they still fail a drug test, they forfeit their annual salary, on top of a two-year ban.
"He [Bettini] has decided for whatever reason not to sign it willingly and to try and sign an altered version which we wont accept," McQuaid said. "It is only a pledge. It is not a legal document, we cannot stop them racing. It was never meant to be."
McQuaid said both the Italian and Spanish federations have said they will not ask their riders to sign the pledge.
"There are some people who still do no realize the condition of cycling today, the state that cycling is in today. They don't fully realize it," McQuaid said.
The Irish president of the sport's world governing body was speaking on the eve of this year's road world championships. Bettini will be defending his title in the men's race on Sunday.
Organizers said Bettini was the only rider not to have signed the document.
On Monday, McQuaid singled out Spain as the chief culprit in blood doping.
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