Arroyo:
“I know the Zoncolan we’ll climb tomorrow because I’ve done it in 2007, it’s a very hard climb”, Arroyo admitted. “We’re at the end of the second week. We’ll all have 200 kilometres of racing in our legs when we’ll climb it. That's a lot."
This is what I'm talking about. Maglia Rosa speaks of long stages. what about the helpers etc ? It's tough. Same outcome with lesser time diffrence with mildly shorter stages. I'm not talking about Blockhaus.
Yes, it's tough, yet you still see incredibly fast average speeds on that kind of stages.
Fact is that human body can get over those kind of stages with no illegal help. Just not that fast. Specially after two weeks of riding.
And think about this: as time went, stages have been shortened and shortened, yet riders use more and more sophisticated doping products. So, shorter stages have already been proved as ineffective when it comes to fighting against doping.
Kristin Armstrong's been questioned.
Strong rumour going around is she's decided to cooperate.
Hey Lance....guess what?....
(in case she is indeed cooperating, that is )
Edited by issoisso on 23-05-2010 01:45
The preceding post is ISSO 9001 certified
"I love him, I think he's great. He's transformed the sport in so many ways. Every person in cycling has benefitted from Lance Armstrong, perhaps not financially but in some sense" - Bradley Wiggins on Lance Armstrong
In his email, Floyd Landis admitted doping between 2002 and 2006. For three of those years he rode for a team sponsored by the United States Postal Service, which is an agency of the United States government.
That could be the most significant fact of all, as it is the one that will take the investigation out of the hands of the sports authorities and into the remit of federal investigators in the United States.
There has been a lot of speculation that this case will hit the buffers because of a lack of proof and a tightening of cycling's rule of omerta which makes it almost impossible for individuals to tell the authorities what they know for fear of being abandoned to their fate.
However, once federal investigators start asking questions, the tongues of anyone in a position to corroborate Landis's claims or make similar ones, will inevitably loosen. The consequences of lying to a federal investigator are severe.
A person close to Landis told Cycling Weekly on Thursday that Landis has already been co-operating with federal investigators from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) agency and had conducted at least one interview, with more planned. The source claimed that Jeff Novitzky, the FDA agent who investigated the BALCO laboratory, uncovering doping in American sports and resulting in a prison term for Marion Jones, was on the case. The Wall Street Journal has also reported that Novitzky is investigating, although the FDA declined to confirm or deny.
CW has been in contact with the United States Postal Service. As a Government agency, it is reasonable to assume that it will be interested in finding out what happened to its money once it was paid to Tailwind Sports, the company that owned and ran the team.
When the United States Postal Service terminated its nine-year sponsorship of the team at the end of 2004, it was reported the agency's commitment had risen to around $8m a year. Certainly over the course of the sponsorship, tens of millions of dollars were paid to sponsor the team.
In an interview with espn.com, Floyd Landis, said the first time he doped was in June 2002, his first year with the US Postal Service team. He claims he paid $10,000 that year for the services of Dr Michele Ferrari, who helped Landis extract and transfuse his blood. He says the sports management at the team knew about the doping and were involved in it.
Asked whether the United States Postal Service had any comment to make regarding Floyd Landis's allegations of doping within the team between 2002 and 2004, Joanne Veto, a spokesperson at USPS said: "The Postal Service has no comment on the allegations."
When asked to confirm how the USPS is funded, Ms Veto said: "The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations."
CW followed up to ask whether the USPS, as a government agency, will be launching any investigation of its own into the team and the admission by Landis that he doped for the three years he was on team. We await a response.
Although it was no longer directly funded by tax payers' money by the time it sponsored the cycling team (funding directly from the tax payer ceased in the 1980s), the United States Postal Service is nevertheless a government agency. The majority of the members of its board are appointed by the President. It is a public service and if it is not already, surely must be poised to investigate in light of Landis's confession that he doped while wearing a jersey bearing the agency's name and logo.
Heinrich Haussler crashed his car while driving drunk. He'd been to a party in Freiburg (cue location jokes ). No injuries reported.
Edited by Wolfos on 23-05-2010 21:09
"I love him, I think he's great. He's transformed the sport in so many ways. Every person in cycling has benefitted from Lance Armstrong, perhaps not financially but in some sense" - Bradley Wiggins on Lance Armstrong
The aerodynamic board behind the seatpost isn't UCI legal, but you can take it off or on as you like depending on if you are riding a TT or a triathlon
"I love him, I think he's great. He's transformed the sport in so many ways. Every person in cycling has benefitted from Lance Armstrong, perhaps not financially but in some sense" - Bradley Wiggins on Lance Armstrong
Yeah, read this. Fighting doping is really a harsh job, and this shows the way's still long 'till EPO reign's end.
Really funny to see New York Times contacting Ferrari, as if there were expecting results. Edited by CrueTrue on 25-05-2010 19:47
Anyone mentioned that UCI has released a press statement where it says:
Floyd Landis’s accusations: clarifications from the UCI
Due to the controversy following the statements made by Floyd Landis, the International Cycling Union wishes to stress that none of the tests revealed the presence of EPO in the samples taken from riders at the 2001 Tour of Switzerland. The UCI has all the documentation to prove this fact.
Between 2001 and 2003, only the Paris, Lausanne, Cologne, Barcelona and Madrid laboratories, commissioned by the UCI, detected the presence of EPO in the samples that had been entrusted to them for analysis. During this period, the first laboratory carried out three positive analyses for EPO, the second 18 and the three last laboratories one each. None of the samples concerned had been taken at the 2001 Tour of Switzerland.
The International Olympic Committee received a copy of all the reports for the positive analyses mentioned above. Furthermore, in 2001, all the analysis reports carried out at the Tour of Switzerland were sent to Swiss Olympic.
Since 1st January 2004, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) receives a copy of any analysis reports which show an abnormal result. WADA has not reported any abnormal analyses from any of its accredited laboratories that have not been duly dealt with by the UCI.
The UCI wishes to reassert the total transparency of its anti-doping testing and categorically rejects any suspicion in relation to the concealment of results from parties involved in this field.
McQuaid faced several follow questions about the ethics of accepting a $100,000 donation from Lance Armstrong.
He refused comparisons with a football team perhaps making a donation to a match referee but embarrassingly admitted that despite promising the $100,000 in April of 2002, Armstrong only paid up in 2005 after the UCI sent him a reminder of payment.
"To the best of my knowledge, the UCI has not accepted other donations and I'd just like to clarify that there was only one donation from Lance Armstrong not two or three," McQuaid said.
"You have to consider that at the time, in 2002, no accusations against Lance Armstrong had been made. They've all came up since then. We accepted the donation to help develop the sport. We didn't think there's a conflict of interest. It's easy to say in hindsight what could or would have been done. You have to put yourself in the situation at the time."
"I think based on experience, based on hindsight and 20/20 vision, and based on the claims of a conflict of interest, the UCI would be very careful before accepting a donation from a rider in the future. Having said that the UCI is not a rich organisation and we have many demands from around the world for demands for support and material. We will listen to anyone who can help us."
Again, as I said to Doddy on msn, that smacks to me of blackmail.
A donation is a donation. If you say you're going to make one (in 2002), and fail to, it's not right (in my mind, and I suspect in many) that the group/charity/organisation comes to "collect" (in 2005) that donation. It's no longer a donation if it's asked for, or reminded about.
rjc_43 wrote:
Again, as I said to Doddy on msn, that smacks to me of blackmail.
A donation is a donation. If you say you're going to make one (in 2002), and fail to, it's not right (in my mind, and I suspect in many) that the group/charity/organisation comes to "collect" (in 2005) that donation. It's no longer a donation if it's asked for, or reminded about.
Smacks to me of blackmail.
Which isn't something surprising, knowing UCI's behavior for a long time now.
Makes me sick to see so many people involved in doping, and so few trying to fight it.
EPO, endless battle.
Another thing that strikes me is that Armstrong said that it was just 25.000 $. 100.000 $ is remarkably much more than what he had said - and when you give away that much money, you'd normally remember...
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