Mancebo to join Hamilton, Ullrich at Tinkoff?

Eurosport | Mancebo receives Tinkoff offer

At this point, maybe it should just name itself the Operación Puerto squad, but the new Tinkoff Credit Systems team looks likely to sign a top crop of riders, many of whom were named in the Spanish doping investigation.

Tinkoff has apparently already signed (but not announced the signing of) Tyler Hamilton. Now they have a 1.2 million euro offer on the table to AG2R's Francisco Mancebo, who said he would hang up his bike after being implicated in the investigation and withdrawn on the eve of the 2006 Tour. Mancebo now has a fallback position if AG2R follows through on Vincent Lavenu's statement that the team will drop him.

Tinkoff is also reportedly pursuing 1997 Tour winner Jan Ullrich, also named in the investigation.