Ivan Basso today confessed to the anti-doping prosecutor of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) that he was involved in the Operación Puerto blood doping scandal. CONI said the 2006 Giro winner came to them of his own accord and offered to cooperate with their investigation and clarify his part in the scandal.

The 29-year-old Basso now faces a ban from cycling of up to two years and an additional two-year exclusion from riding on ProTour teams. If his doping is connected to his 2006 Giro win, authorities could also strip him of that title. "He wasn't feeling good and he wasn't calm, and he wanted to lift a weight off his conscience," said Basso's lawyer Massimo Martelli. "During the interrogation he was shaking, but then he regained his composure to show great character."

Ivano Fanini, owner of Italian cycling team Amore and Vita, was happy to see Basso come clean. "I knew it would finish this way and it could be a great chance for things to change," he said. "Basso has shown his intelligence and understands that this is the right road to take. "He mustn't only think about saving himself, and I hope that what he has done proves to be important."

For those keeping score at home, 2006 was not a good year for cycling. To recap:

American Floyd Landis becomes the first Tour winner to fail a drug test after testing positive for the male sex hormone testosterone during the race. Landis, who continues to deny using performance-enhancing drugs, is due to appear before the U.S. Anti-Doping agency on May 14.

Germany's 1997 Tour winner Jan Ullrich, Giro d'Italia champion Ivan Basso are among nine competitors forced to withdraw on the eve of the 2006 Tour de France prologue after being implicated in a Spanish doping investigation, Operation Puerto. Ullrich is subsequently sacked by his T-Mobile team and retires from competition in February.

DNA tests confirm that some of the bags of blood seized in Operation Puerto belongs to Ullrich, the Bonn state prosecutor's office says in April.

Having dropped their investigation into Basso last October, the Italian Olympic Committee reopen it and he appears before a doping hearing on May 2. Today, Basso admits his involvement in the scandal.

I can only hope that this year's Tour not be conducted under a cloud of suspicion like last year's race. Maybe we can actually have a winner of the 2006 TdF declared by then.

Source: Basso admits involvement in Puerto scandal