Claudio Corti: The mastermind behind Barloworld

Barloworld's success in the Tour so far has everyone and their brother praising their performance, going on about how wildcard teams add a lot of excitement to the race, and discussing whether more wildcards should be allowed in the big tours. Call me cynical, but I find this new-found adulation for Barloworld slightly questionable.

First of all, the Barloworld team was first created as a means to support and improve South African cycling on the professional level. The team was originally meant to be in the Slipstream mold of a national team to develop South African talent with a goal of taking a South African team to the Tour de France. However, management shake-ups and various fairly nasty infighting led to change in 2005 when Italian Claudio Corti took over as team manager. Since then the team has become more multi-national with an Italian emphasis, and the number of South African riders is now at only four. While this is perhaps understandable in a sport where winning is obviously the single main pay-back to sponsors, the fact remains that the founding idea of Barloworld has somewhat been forgotten in the rush for results. South African amateurs who show promise surely need all the encouragement they can get in a country where making the leap from the amateur to professional level is very hard indeed for riders. It seems regrettable that Barloworld has taken on so many Italian riders and fewer South African ones.

Another issue to consider is that as far as I can tell, Barloworld has no anti-doping program. While this is hardly unusual for teams of their level, the fact remains that I hesitate to place any faith in teams which do not publicly and clearly articulate what they are doing to prevent doping amongst their riders. This issue cannot be ignored by any team, perhaps especially one run by Corti, a long-time member of the inner circle of Italian pro cycling.

As former team manger or director at teams including Polti, Saeco, Lampre, Gatorade, and Chateau d'Ax, Corti has been involved in teams with a number of doping cases. Most notable perhaps, is that Corti was team manager of Saeco in 2004 when the Oil for Drugs investigation first found evidence that three Saeco riders (DiLuca, Mazzoleni, and Spezialetti) were involved with suspected doping doctor Carlo Santuccione. According to Le Monde, Mazzoleni was recorded in phone conversations with Santuccione saying, "I did 4,000 units for Sunday subcutaneously... and I'm racing Saturday... For Saturday, are there any problems?" Mazzoleni recently retired or at least ended his contract with Astana, in apparent hopes of avoiding repercussions for his now ex-team if he is banned, as seems likely.

Di Luca was barred from the Tour de France in 2004 due to this investigation, a decision which prompted an upset Corti to complain that, "It isn't the right way to defend the image of the Tour de France. It's a bad day for cycling and for sport. There are a lot of investigations under way in Italy because in Italy there's a law against doping which doesn't exist in other countries. This penalizes Italian riders, and I hope we can soon have a European law that harmonizes all the laws on doping."

Corti was team manager of Lampre in 2005 when their rider Evgeni Petrov was thrown out of the Tour de France for a too high haematocrit. Lampre rider Michele Scotto d'Abusco also was kicked out of the Dauphiné Libéré for the same reason.

As head of Barloworld, Corti made a contract offer to Ivan Basso after he was let go from CSC, and before he joined Discovery. Asked by CyclingNews whether he was concerned how hiring Basso could impact Barloworld's chances of eventually becoming a ProTour Team, Corti said, "I did not think in these terms. I made an offer to Ivan because I believe that he can be a rider for us. I feel that it is better a rider expresses himself on the bike. And if there is not a guilty judgment you should be able to do this."

On October 29, 1998, Italian police raided the University of Ferrara's Centre for Biomedical Studies Applied to Sport, which was headed by Dr. Conconi, and previous home also to Conconi's ex-assistant Dr. Michele Ferrari. During this raid, computer files were seized, which included lists of cyclists treated by the Centre. These lists stated which athletes had been treated with EPO and also recorded the results of hundreds of blood tests from 1992 to 1995, showing massive fluctuations of riders' haematocrits over time. Among the many riders on these lists was Gianni Bugno. In 1990, Gianni Bugno won the Giro d'Italia, Milan-Sanremo, and two stages of the Tour de France while on the team Chateau D’Ax (later Gatorade), where Corti was directeur sportif.

Is a team manager responsible for doping that takes place on his team? Certainly this is a complex question, and one without clear answers. Jaksche said that all his team managers knew what was going on, even if they refused to discuss it directly. Jaksche specifically mentioned Stanga, Goodefroot, and Riis. Manzano also implicated his team directors in systematic team doping. So can Corti be held responsible for doping amongst his previous teams? Perhaps not. But it certainly suggests that before anyone jumps blindly on the band-wagon and becomes a gung-ho new fan for current Tour darling Barloworld, they should at least be aware of Corti's past track record, and free to make their own informed judgments.