Allan Davis and second chances

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ADELAIDE, Australia -- Allan Davis, an unassuming 28-year-old Australian, is set to win the Tour Down Under, barring any unexpected road disasters Sunday, and it is a victory being happily cheered even by competitors such as Lance Armstrong, who felt Davis was unfairly caught up in the ongoing Spanish sports doping investigation called Operacion Puerto.

Davis rode for the former Liberty Seguros team that was disqualified from the 2006 Tour de France after several of its riders, including Davis, had their names linked to the Spanish doctor involved in the investigation. Davis maintained, and further investigations seemed to prove, that his only guilt was being on the team that eventually disbanded when its sponsorship was dropped because of cycling’s doping scandals.

Cycling Australia cleared Davis and he was eligible to race after 2007 but no team picked him up, in part, Davis said, because of the fear of signing a rider seemingly tainted by doping, especially one who wasn’t yet a big star. ‘I think I was considered guilty by association,’ Davis said this week.

The Belgian team Quick Step signed the talented young rider this season and Armstrong said he was happy to see Davis back and riding well.

‘Obviously he got caught up in Puerto, and when you have things like that some people are guilty and some people just kind of get caught up in it,’ Armstrong said. ‘It seems to me, and I don’t know all the details, but it seems to me that he might have been one of those ones that just got tarnished because of the team he was on, and you hate to see that.

‘It’s not that different to what somebody like me has gone through. You have a year and you’re out and people say you’re done and they don’t give you chances but then you come back and you come back with a vengeance. So I’m proud of him.’

Davis was asked if he might be getting the monkey off his back by leading the Tour Down Under. ‘It will never be off,’ he said.

-- Diane Pucin