Lance Armstrong may have retired from professional cycling after winning his seventh successive Tour de France in July 2005, but he remains a powerful and influential figure in European racing. Last week, as co-owner of the Discovery Channel cycling team, he was the key player in the recruitment of Ivan Basso, winner of this year’s Giro d’Italia.

The signing of Basso by the world’s most high-profile team is proving controversial on several levels. The Italian, who was the clear pre-race favourite, was dramatically withdrawn from last summer’s Tour de France by his then sponsor, CSC, when allegations surfaced that he was involved in a Madrid-based blood doping ring, when the result of the “Operaçion Puerto” investigations were made public.

Basso fled through the back door of his hotel and returned home to Italy. He refused to undergo a DNA test and maintained that he would be proved innocent of any wrongdoing. Jan Ullrich, of Germany, was similarly suspended and subsequently dismissed by his sponsor, T-Mobile.

By late October, however, the “Puerto” investigation had stalled. With Basso and his legal team exerting considerable pressure, the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI), despite advice to the contrary from the UCI (International Cycling Union), which maintained that further evidence would soon come to light, dismissed any case against Basso and cleared him to return to racing.

This proved unsatisfactory to CSC and team manager, Bjarne Riis, who claims that the world’s top teams had agreed not to hire any of those involved in the “Puerto” investigation. “I’ve lost a lot in this affair,” Riis said. “I am now without the best rider in the world but I also risked the disappearance of my team . . . In the end, individual interests prevailed.”

Riis was not alone in voicing disapproval. Rolf Aldag, team director at T-Mobile, said: “It’s inconceivable that Basso should sign for Discovery.”

T-Mobile’s communications director, Christian Frommert, who led the move to suspend and then dismiss Ullrich, said: “We are still worried as to whether the sport will be able to effectively fight against doping. We need firm alliances for that.”

Armstrong and the Discovery team’s management, however, appear to have no such concerns, despite the slim possibility of the “Puerto” case finally coming to trial next June, only days before the 2007 Tour begins in London. The Texan and the Italian became friends after Armstrong was supportive of Basso’s attempts to care for his mother, Nives, who was found to have cancer in 2004.

The signing of Basso, Armstrong’s closest rival in his final two Tours, appears to be a calculated risk. Spanish police still hold 200 bags of blood seized from Dr Eufemiano Fuentes, the doctor whose activities fuelled the investigation. Basso is one of several riders whose name appears among the doctor’s telephone and e-mail contacts to have refused to submit to DNA tests.

Bill Stapleton, Armstrong’s former agent and now the Discovery team’s general manager, maintains that Basso has been “exonerated” but sources within the UCI are convinced that this is premature.

Meanwhile, David Millar, of Great Britain, appears to have cleared the final hurdle of his rehabilitation, after last week’s trial in Paris of the Scot and several of his former Cofidis team-mates for doping offences.

Millar, who was banned for EPO use in 2004, was again contrite, and said that he took drugs because “it was my job to get good results”. The public prosecutor in Nanterre has dropped a demand that Millar face jail for his part in the scandal.

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