Mecair-Ballan Gewiss–Ballan Gewiss Playbus Batik–Del Monte
Gewiss–Ballan was an Italian-based road bicycle racing team active from 1993 to 1997, named after the Italian electrical engineering company Gewiss. The team was successful in the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France as well as several classics during the early 1990s.
History
The team was sponsored by the Mecair company and the Italian maker of garage doors Ballan in 1993. The Italian electrical engineering company Gewiss took over as the main sponsor in 1994. Gewiss had previously sponsored the Bianchi cycling team from 1987 to 1989. In 1996 the second sponsor was taken by the Gewiss brand Playbus. Directeur sportifs with the team included Emanuele Bombini and Paolo Rosola. In the four years of its existence, the team achieved great successes.
After the Fleche Wallonne of 1994, French sports newspaper L'Équipe interviewed the team's doctor Michele Ferrari. Journalist Jean-Michel Rouet asked Ferrari if his riders used EPO to which Ferrari denied prescribing the drug but said he would not find it wrong, saying that it was not dangerous and compared taking EPO to drinking orange juice. This remark generated controversy and Ferrari later stepped down as team doctor.[2]
On 11 January 1999 Danmarks Radio aired The Price of Silence in Denmark, the first of a three part series that detailed doping in cycling of the Team ONCE and Gewiss teams. The programme alleged that EPO was used by the Gewiss–Ballan team in 1995. The journalists had come into possession of papers of hematocrit levels of riders of the team which showed large fluctuations from normal levels to those indicating doping. These figures would later be published in L’Equipe (discussed below). In addition the documentary told of how during the Tour of Denmark on 4 August 1995 journalists made a doping find in a hotel room where the soigneur of Gewiss Paolo Ganzerli had slept the night before. Six riders of the team had also stayed in the hotel on that night of 3 August 1995. The journalists found a Gewiss bag filled with 12 used and bloodied needles, an ampule which according to its label contained Recomon 5000 (EPO) and three blank ampules of which subsequent tests revealed contained EPO.[5]
Further revelations about systematic doping on the team were published in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica and the French sports paper L'Équipe in 1999. These were based on published writing from journalist Eugenio Capodacqua from the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica. Capodacqua published blood values (hematocrit levels) from Gewiss riders and results of an investigation into the team and its doctor Michele Ferrari.[6]
On 12 March 1999 L'Equipe published a table of hematocrit levels of Gewiss riders that were taken from December 1994 to May 1995. This was before the UCI limit of a hematocrit level of 50% which came into effect in 1997. Bjarne Riis rode for the team at the time and his levels went from 41.1 to 56.3, Gotti from 40.7 to 57 and Berzin from 41.7 to 53. Ugrumov had the highest level at 60%. Riis immediately denied the validity of the figures.[6] Riis's hematocrit level of 41.1%, in a test conducted on 14 January 1995, was a normal value for an adult male while six months later on 10 July 1995, several days after Riis wore the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification for the first time at the Tour de France, his level was 56.3%.
Another doctor of the team, Dr. Gianni Mazzoni, was in a separate case, accused of promoting doping in sports.[7]
Hematocrit variations 1994 to 1995
These are the published hematocrit variations (in percentage) of Gewiss riders in 1994 and 1995.[8]
