Thursday update
Kimmage vs Armstrong. I bet Kimmage was the only guy in that room with the balls to ask that sort of question. Good for him.
Millar on the end of the no-go Catlin program: "Naive."
Lionel Birnie deftly dismantles Armstrong's empty promises of transparency.
Details of the CONI case vs Valverde. Seems like F. Schleck may be next in line to go. Other Saxo riders were also tested at that Tour stage, so more could possibly be under the gun. I am especially interested to see if they match the Luigi blood bag to anyone. Now that would set fire to the sport.
Austin Murphy on the power of confession.
Seems that Beltran's ban may soon be in place after all.
WADA has suddenly dropped their CAS appeal of Sella's short ban, and it is suggested this is due to WADA's gratitude toward CONI for taking on the Operacion Puerto case of Valverde. So Sella gets off easy while Valverde is nailed. Fair?
Doctor Andreas Zoubek sued the Kurier newspaper for writing articles about him allegedly selling doping products, but a judge ruled against him. Zoubek claims to have lost his job and basically had his life ruined. Yeah, getting involved in doping has a tendency to do that...too bad more people don't bother to worry about that before they take the plunge into the dark side. No word on whether Zoubek was actually involved in the Kohl CERA case, as the Kurier had previously suggested. Kohl refused to name his supplier.
The be-all-and-end-all of epic interviews with Allen Lim.
Multi-stage winner Gavazzi in Langkawi has a comeback story of his own. Can't be the greatest situation for a former addict to be riding on Savio's team, can it?
I've heard lately that a recent trend among certain sprinters is to use sublingual isosorbide in the last few kilometers of a race. This drug, known as Carvasin in Italy, is a vasodilator which is currently fully legal to use according to WADA guidelines. It is rumored to be in use in a current race, but hey, if it is legal, who cares, right?
Sometimes I feel sorry for non-cycling reporters who just don't have a clue what they are up against, and who get conned by the smooth scam artists of the sport without even realizing it.
OUCH says that Landis is OK despite a crash in training today that left him ominously absent from the ToC press conference. Hmm, hope he didn't land on the bionic hip. Must come in handy sometimes to have your sponsor be a medical center.
Mr. Adorable almost moos in delight after winning one for the cow team. Maybe he just wanted to set me straight about the whole lactose intolerance issue? Even better, look who's in second.
On the Garmin twitter, Vaughters was fuming over some sort of unnamed problem at the start of the TTT at the Tour of the Med, where they came in second. According to later comments at the Garmin website, it seems that Ryder Hesjedal had a mechanical problem at the start that resulted in him being delayed and actually having to ride the whole TTT by himself behind the other guys. Hesjedal finished at 1:59 down.
I am getting a little worried about the ToC weather. Sounds like it could be a death march of cold rain, even snow and ice. Sounds bad for all involved, and worse for the image of the race.
18 comments:
I saw that Betsy Andreu successfully sued the Guardian over their sloppy reporting. Bravo for sticking to her statement in the face of LA and his relentless army of intimidation and snark.
Oh yeah, Kimmage rules!!!
Actually Andreu took exception to comments made by Armstrong about her, which were then printed as direct quotes by The Guardian.
While you can argue that Donald McRae should have followed up and checked whether Andreu wrote a blog, etc, the fact is Andreu's beef was with Armstrong's comments.
Okay, so it was not watertight of The Guardian, it was not 'sloppy reporting'.
But it seems odd to me that Andreu chooses to pursue The Guardian and not the individual who made the comments in the first place. Odd that, no?
Great post: First off, I appreciate you carrying the banner of anti doping in cycling but also the comments/fan observations of the peleton.
Kimmage is the man for blasting Mr. "LuvDong" at his press conference.
Gavazzi: I liken Gavazzi use of drugs to be a simalar case as the well recounted tale of Phelps and his bong. It was recreational drug use and not him trying to swindle the public by taking performance enhancing drugs. Or maybe he was doping back then while on coke...who knows? I will assume he did not and hope that he is clean now and living life to the fullest with a second chance at now that he is clean from coke.
John Devine? Anyone come up with an answer as to where is he is these days?
I'm not sure how I feel about Sella's shortened ban. That was some crazy blatant doping right there. But he did name his supplier, team-mate Priamo, and CONI has thrown a four year ban at that dude. I guess I can support their idea that they need to offer an incentive for riders to give information.
Luigi. Hmm, I think I remember whose codename that allegedly was. If I have the right guy, yeah, that would be pretty huge.
Thanks for the linkage!
Armstrong's Twitter complaints about the doping controls are just laughable. "Apologies to the Livestrong Crew"!?!?
Looks like Lance thrashed Kimmage there pretty good. Dont mess with Texas!
I guess the folks who devised the Tour of California didn't realize that February is typically our coldest and rainiest month. I understand how it was probably the most ideal slot on the calendar, but bad cycling weather is the norm for February.
PS: "If you don't like Lance Armstrong, you must love cancer. You don't love cancer, DO YOU???"
Most of the Kimmage v. Armstrong reports I've read conveniently omit Kimmage's response to Lance's fingerpointing. Cyclingnews left it in: "You don't have a patent on cancer. I'm interested in the cancer of doping in cycling. That has been my life's work! I raced as a professional and I exposed it. Then you come along and the problem disappears."
I don't remember the exact words, and the online version has been changed, but I think the reporter was the one that said Andreu had been lying about Armstrong. I'm pretty sure it wasn't in an Armstrong quote.
It was the reporter who said that Andreu was lying. He wrote
"Other people, apparently, also lied about Armstrong. Betsy Andreu, whose husband Frankie raced with Armstrong, claims she heard the cyclist tell doctors treating him for cancer that he had taken performance-enhancing drugs".
Bob should look at his cycling history - Guimard's palmares as a DS make Bruyneel's look pathetic. Oh, I forgot, there's only 1 race that matters...
Armstrong doesn't have a copyright on cancer rhetoric - anyone who prefaces their (oh so scripted) comments with a remark about coming back for 'a noble cause' deserves to have that rhetoric used against them. Anyone lese get the feeling that if Kimmage hadn't opened his mouth the 'cancer messiah' diatribe would still have been used against him? The treatment of Ms Macur rather bears this out.
Interesting that 'cancer' is still seen as such a pejorative term though - maybe Liestrong could do some valuable work to remove that stigma?
Finally congratulations to Mrs Andreu - interesting that she'll be donating any monies to charity. Seems that integrity does have a price, one that Betsy is prepared to pay and Mr Armstrong isn't.
Armstrong was sneeringly below the belt there, playing the cancer card for all it was worth to try to make enemies for Kimmage because of his turn of phrase. I think the metaphor was acceptable, incidentally. Armstrong and Postal had a pretty bad effect on the sport, maintaining or exacerbating the arms race...
Anyone else surprised about the track world cup result? Sorry to piss on the parade, but for an 18 year old to improve his PB by over seven seconds and almost break Wiggin's Olympic record...well, let's just say I'd believe it far easier if he was still with Garmin rather than LordBong...
http://www.canadiancyclist.com/default2.html
KImmage's take.
Is Luigi supposed to by Cippo?
Cry me a river about the weather at TOC. They have been lucky on that front for years. Welcome to CA winter! I hope it's abysmal all week long, everyday. I want to see GC guys wilt & Tuft have it his way.
Keep up the good work.
the facts:
1. Betsy Andreau didn't lie. She testified under oath. Please note she is a devout Christian. She heard Armstrong list ALL the banned substances he had taken prior to his diagnosis.
2. Kimmage is a well respected and award winning journalist. A former Pro who has ridden the Tour de France several times. In his referral that Armstrong was the cancer within cycling - he meant the doping within cycling. Read the article.
3. Armstrong said last year that his testing would be 'totally transparent and open'. Then he dumps Catlin who said he would freeze Armstrongs samples for 8 years.
4. Almost all the top contenders in the Tour has either tested positive or been linked to doping. So guys on EPO couldn't get near Armstrong for 7 years. It bugs me, the hypocrisy of this man.
5. He refuses to let his 1999 samples be retested. Samples that contain traces of EPO.
if you have nothing to hide then why hide? Why??
www.bikepure.org - help our sport.
Why would anyone welcome back the dopers ? Proven cheats would be a better description.
Kimmerage is right to ask the questions, its a shame there are not other so called journalists who support him.
The fist link to Sacramento Bee does no longer work (?)
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