Ollfardh wrote:
It's sad how they treat this appeal so fast, while Toon Aerts is still waiting for his appeal from last cyclocross season and has to sit out the start of the current season while waiting for the UCI to do something.

TheManxMissile wrote:


Toon Aerts - few elements here.
1) The UCI has not actually banned him, he is not racing because his team said no, and then his own side also chose not to pursue other contracts (Why do this? In case he loses his appeal this time will count as part of any suspension. However if he raced, the ban would begin only from that decision date, and any results from time would be DSQ'd. His team made pretty clear they hold a zero-tolerance policy, so until this is concluded will not let him ride for them).
2) B-Sample results are still being awaited (Why? I'm not too sure, seems to be a bit of disagreement between Aers/UCI/WADA on the process around testing the B-Sample and agreeing who will test and how).
3) As this is an AAF the whole process are always more complicated and take longers, vs a positive test for a fully banned substance. For AAF's, the UCI gives the rider a full chance to lodge an appeal and explanation before handing out a scentence. As related to #1, this case has not yet been submitted by Aerts side. They have to try and figure out how this substance got into his urine, and then demonstrate it was accidental. Or if the B-sample comes back negative we can all move on as well.
Tl;dr - UCI has not banned Aerts. The delay is due Aert's side taking their time submitting his appeal (and this is probably the right choice). And of course, this can all still end up going to a CAS appeal after this initial Aerts vs UCI appeal.



Quintana's appeal process was pretty quick, based on the argument made from Quintana's side. His point of contest was in the testing processes not being followed properly. WADA and the UCI were fairly easily able to demonstrate their processes were followed correctly, and Quintana was unable to show an proof against this fact. Hence a nice quick CAS decision, it's a very clear yes/no decision based on easily provable elements.
And unlike Aerts, Tramadol is on the UCI straight-ban list, so this isn't an AAF. Therefore his ban is immediate, which in turn speeds up the whole process. He also cannot argue it was a mistaken ingestion of the substance, instead having to show an error in the testing process which caused an incorrect result. (which btw is super hard to do, and makes CAS appeals easy because either it's clear proof or no proof).
If this was in 2024 it'd be even quicker, as Tramadol gets added to WADA's banned list, making it even harder to appeal against at every level.

LLDS wrote:

Wow, thanks for the explanations, I was unaware of it.
Does anyone knows the sanction against Quintana?
Will he be able to ride PRO level next year?

Ollfardh wrote:
There's definitely some difference in the narratives of the UCI and Toon Aerts. But I don't see how a 29 year old contractless rider would gain anything by stalling procedures.

Ollfardh wrote:
Indeed no surprise. There was an interesting interview with Benjamin Declercq yesterday, who is still looking for a team but needed the B&B uncertainty to end first. All those guys avaialble an for easy pick-up won't help him though.

But anyway, the interesting part was where he complains about the current point system. He was riding for a win in a race and had to stop riding because his points wouldn't count on the rankings (only the best 10 riders for each team count). So he had to drop back and help Hofstetter get 3rd place as those points would actually count. That does sound a bit broken at the moment.