Oh no, not again - more rumours

I'm seeing spots. Rumours are flying about a Barloworld police raid and a rider testing positive after stage 14. Now usually this means the winner of a stage or a jersey holder, who all get tested. So is it Soler, Contador or Boonen? Or just a big beat up? If it's a jersey holder it'll come out real fast, you'd think, although hushing it up until due process is followed would not be impossible to imagine, too. Especially since we've been jumping to so many conclusions so fast lately. I can't imagine hushing up the potential winner, but another jersey could be hung out to dry later, I guess.

This story was discounted, denied, a day or so later : from CN - The speculation was further fuelled by reports of police cars at the Barloworld hotel on Friday night. "Some journalist saw an Ag2r Prévoyance team car and thought it was a police car," confirmed Prudhomme. "There was not any police at the hotel."

Drugs in cycling. So is it really so bad?

Yes, I reckon it is. We have stars who have tested positive - whether they have admitted it or not, they have been caught out in tests - and we can't ourselves see inside their minds, so we must rely instead on the tests. Basso is just the latest. At least he admits it, or admits considering it, even if he didn't actually do it. Millar did it, admitted to it, copped the suspension and came back. Hamilton? Well he admits nothing but did his time. Landis - probably the highest profile of the lot, given that it was all so public - denies it all. Pantani? Well his was the cruelest blow - to be in sight of the win and have it snatched away. Armstrong? Well if you believe the French papers anything is possible, but there is no real evidence. Anyway, the list is too long and you know it already.

Now I'd like to think they are all innocent and that it's all done in error - but that seems a forlorn hope. Maybe some errors were made - and maybe there is some truth in some of the conspiracy theories. But not all. I know from my own amateur racing career that some riders popped caffeine pills and some visited gymnasiums for reasons other than weightlifting. And some got upset when they got "the wrong banana" at race end. Whatever. It's a tough sport, we all want to get through it without too much pain and without too many injuries, and we all want to win. So we are all tempted to greater or lesser degrees to "aid" our recovery after hard training, to "assist" our return after injury and to do "what it takes" to win. It's human nature to cheat, as humans are cunning and deceptive creatures, and it takes a great deal of willpower to resist temptation, no matter what that temptation may be. When it appears that the culture of this sport - or any sport, and I think some are in this same boat - is biased toward "assistance", we have a problem.

I think we still have a problem. What do you reckon?

Look to the future, forget the past

Interesting report in Cyclingnews today...about Bjarne Riis and allegations about EPO and other drug use in 1996... now I won't say what I don't know but Riis did do very well that year (especially in Le Tour) and held his young lieutenant (Ullrich) back in 2nd place. Riis was 7th the following year (Ullrich 1st) and retired shortly thereafter, I recall, having never reached the top step again; although his more recent days as team CSC boss has brought some vicarious podium glory. Riis had a string of high placings previously, including back in the Indurain days.

Anyway, here's the piece from CN... can you tell me what he (reportedly) didn't say?

Riis responds to doping allegations

Team CSC boss Bjarne Riis has brushed off allegations from former Team Telekom soigneur Jef D'hondt that he used EPO and other doping products to win the 1996 Tour de France. The allegations were made on Belgian TV program Panorama on Sunday evening and claimed, among other things, that "Riis had a hematocrit of 64 at one time during the Tour," caused by the use of EPO.

"I have never had a particularly close relation with Jef D'hondt and he has no validation for the allegations he is making," said Riis in a statement released on Monday evening. "There will always be someone out there trying to make money by talking about the past and in my opinion that is probably what he is trying to do here.

"This is probably not the first nor the last time these kinds of stories surface," he continued. "To me, it's all in the past and I do not wish to be held accountable every time someone finds it interesting to bring up some ten-year-old story. I truly believe the future is much more important than the past. I want to be judged on the work I'm doing with my team today, and the results we achieve - that is what's important to me."

Why Floyd was not super human at all

Interesting take here on whether Floyd really needed any super-powers to do what he did on that fateful stage, from the BikeBiz website. Of course it wasn't super-human, plenty of riders before him have successfully broken away from a peleton and gained the types of advantages quoted, what's more important in the Landis situation is his co-incidental drug-test positive on that same stage. I think most people now agree that the alleged drug abuse would not have given him more than just a mental kick, if indeed he knowingly took the drug, which of course he denies. Only Landis, or perhaps some conspirators somewhere, really know the truth. Anyway, here's the quote:

"And on the CycleOps website, Dr Lim has an explanation of why the stage 17 victory by Floyd Landis in the 2006 Tour de France was not "super-human" or fuelled by testosterone but was well within typical power outputs of Landis and had a lot to do with tactical errors from the peleton and the fact Landis could take on board more water than the chasers.

Lim said: "What is very interesting about the [power] data from the climbs is that it shows that Floyd gained much of his time on the field not on the climbs but on the descents. He's well known as the most talented descender in the pro peleton, and he definitely put on a clinic on S17.

'Because of the direct and immediate feedback from the power meter, Floyd came to an immediate and extraordinarily important realization during his ride -- that every time he poured ice cold water on his body, his power output went up.'"

An old fashioned story of drug cheating

Interesting story at Cyclingnews.com of a rider (Rachel Dard, by name) caught out in several ways - back in the old days- 1976 in fact. He was apparently cheating by doping, then cheating the test by swapping urine, then cheating by pressuring the doctor to let him off by destroying his report. Upon realising he hadn't completed the job thoroughly enough he chased said doctor and pressured him again to destroy the empty vials, only to come undone when the doctor finally spilled the beans anyway. Now one must wonder exactly how many got away with it. Plenty, one suspects. But these were days before EPO, so we are talking (presumably) of steroids, cortisone and amphetamines.

Not good, certainly, and even in the amateur ranks it was common enough to know of this sort of thing. Drinks that were "special" and only for a given rider - laced with brandy or whatever alcohol they preferred, to be used prior to the sprint... although what effect that may have had is difficult to judge - maybe the effect was in their head? Or bananas with amphetamines for that lift you need, or think you need, just before a sprint or major climb. And the ever-present No-doze tabs. It can't have been just me hearing these stories, or watching riders throwing tantrums when they got the "wrong" banana... can it?