The question of what to do about a rider awaiting a ruling on a doping case in terms of a team's training camp has come up again, only a little while after the year's first big one, Alberto Contador.
In the case of Alberto Contador, the three-time Tour de France champion made the trip to Fuerteventura to be with his Saxo Bank team.
Vacansoleil, who recently scored a coveted ProTeam license, opted not to include Ezequiel Mosquera in its training camp in Benidorm, Spain.
It's unclear what the team wants to do with the rider who finished 2nd at this year's Vuelta a Espana and tested positive for hydroxyethyl starch en route to the biggest result of his career. For the sake of the ProTeam application, Mosquera was left off the team's roster, but when the team announced its roster for the 2011 season, Mosquera was on it. Now, once again, Mosquera finds himself on the outside looking in.
It might not be so simple though, as the 35 year old climber has just had an operation on his clavicle to fix an old injury. It's unclear whether that operation would keep him from the training camp, or if rider and team prefer to keep their distance for the time being.
However, De Morgen reports that Mosquera will in fact make the trip to Benidorm to be with his new team early next week. He just needs to undergo a physical examination, and then he'll be ready to join his Vacansoleil team.
The real question will be whether Mosquera attends the team presentation in Rotterdam in January.
The Vacansoleil team will spend the next ten days enjoying the sunny warmth of Spain. Riccardo Ricco spoke with Cicloweb.it and indicated that, like most other teams having the training camps in December, the goals aren't entirely on training this time around. "This camp will be an opportunity to strengthen relationships with teammates and better plan our programs for 2011."