{"id":136894,"date":"2016-03-14T15:47:59","date_gmt":"2016-03-14T15:47:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/?p=136894"},"modified":"2016-05-03T08:06:11","modified_gmt":"2016-05-03T08:06:11","slug":"mechanical-doping-scandal-femke-van-den-driessche-gives-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2016\/03\/14\/mechanical-doping-scandal-femke-van-den-driessche-gives-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Mechanical Doping Scandal: Femke Van den Driessche gives up!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The 19-year-old Belgian rider is going to drop her defence and probably isn\u2019t even going to appear in front of the UCI\u2019s Disciplinary Commission in Aigle, Switzerland, which is to be held tomorrow.<\/strong><br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2016\/02\/profimedia-0272732350-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-133481 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2016\/02\/profimedia-0272732350-1-600x399.jpg\" alt=\"The 19-year-old Belgian rider is going to drop her defence and probably isn\u2019t even going to appear in front of the UCI\u2019s Disciplinary Commission in Aigle, Switzerland, which is to be held tomorrow.\" width=\"600\" height=\"399\" \/><\/a><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even though Van den Driessche still insists the bike belonged to a friend of hers, she is aware of the fact that it was found in her pits and that is an offence, which is<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> unpardonable<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> by the rules. Combined with the fact that UCI and a lot of cycling personalities are pressing for the toughest sentence possible, the Belgian decided to throw in the towel.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&#8220;After consulting with my lawyers and my family, I have decided to discontinue my defence at the hearing in Aigle. I have decided for myself to stop cyclo-cross. The costs of the meeting in Switzerland <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">would<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> be too high for me. Acquittal is impossible, the bike was in my pit zone. I thank all the people who supported me and still support &#8211; my lawyers, friends and supporters. I want to continue my life in peace and serenity and hope that everyone will have some understanding for this and will respect this,&#8221; wrote Van den Driessche in <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> report published by Het Nieuwsblad. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-133480 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2016\/02\/profimedia-0265339551-600x400.jpg\" alt=\"Even though Van den Driessche still insists the bike belonged to a friend of hers, she is aware of the fact that it was found in her pits and that is an offence, which is unpardonable by the rules. Combined with the fact that UCI and a lot of cycling personalities are pressing for the toughest sentence possible, the Belgian decided to throw in the towel.\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Read more about mechanical doping <a href=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/?s=doping\" target=\"_blank\">HERE<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 19-year-old Belgian rider is going to drop her defence and probably isn\u2019t even going to appear in front of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":133477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[329],"tags":[],"global-categories":[],"class_list":["post-136894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-road-cycling"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.3 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Mechanical Doping Scandal: Femke Van den Driessche gives up! 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