Jesus Floyd, stop talking

Floyd Landis recently gave an interview to Velonews. It didn't go well. I'm going to handle it in bits, because reading it makes my head hurt.

First up, Floyd talking about Tyler Hamilton:

(Landis speaking): Let's look at Tyler Hamilton. You can think what you want about Tyler. But it's irrelevant at this point. He's served his suspension. People who are released from prison because of armed robbery after three years are not prevented from ever living as a human being again. They've served their time; let's give them a chance, right? I'm not saying he is guilty or innocent, I don't know. All I'm saying is he served his time. There is no reason for everyone to say Michael Ball is somehow condoning doping because he wants to hire Tyler Hamilton. Tyler has a legitimate license...I can see it from the same point of view as everyone else. But if you want to create a punishment of some kind for lying, then create a punishment for lying. But right now what you have is a system where, if a person is convicted, they get a suspension of a defined amount of time. There's nothing that says we're going to treat you like shit afterwards if you don't admit to it, and if you do admit to it, you're fine. If you want to add that to the rules, add it to the rules. But if you don't add it to the rules... it just leaves people completely in limbo.

I'm not even sure how to begin unpacking this. Let's start with "ever living as a human being again". I'm not aware of too many CFO's who, after serving time for embezzlement, go back to their former jobs. Hamilton doesn't have a right to race bicycles and nobody is saying he can't work at all. Teams, understandably, may be a bit shy about hiring a guy who is still maintaining that he did nothing wrong even after he's come up positive and continues to be associated with some of the larger doping scandals in Europe. To not understand why teams wouldn't hire Hamilton today, and why it's such a big deal that Ball did, is to not understand the business and the current state of cycling. And the ridiculous hyperbole about being treated like a sub-human reminds me of Vino's infamous comment that being asked to provide blood for doping controls was a violation of his human rights. But the Landis riff on Hamilton did lead to this classic exchange (remember, Landis introduced Hamilton into the conversation):

[Velonews]: Who specifically is treating Tyler like shit? Are you referring to the UCI, USA Cycling, or the media...?
FL: I don't know. Look, I don't mean to point out Tyler in this whole thing. It's not just Tyler.

Anyone finding Floyd's straw man, please return it to him. BTW, why doesn't the media ask this same follow-up question to sitting or potential US presidents?

Hold your nose and read the whole thing if you can. I'll be posting some other topic from the interview as my stomach settles.

I'll believe it when I see it

a.k.a. "Please, oh please let this happen"

From Velonews:

Could Levi Leipheimer and defending champion Alberto Contador be left out of the 2008 Tour de France because of the bad-news legacy of the Astana team? That's what French and Spanish media reports are suggesting as the Tour de France organization mulls its invitations for the upcoming edition. Sources say lingering questions over whether Contador is linked to the Operación Puerto investigation and Astana's scandalous legacy from 2007 might prompt Tour organizers to leave the team out of the season's most important race when invitations are announced in the coming weeks.

Ahh, a boy can dream can't he?

Baseball and Steriods

Suppose I should say something about this. I've been saying for a while that in aerobic sports (running, cycling) there are no longer any legitimate superhuman efforts. It just can't happen. Looks like the same applies to non-aerobic sports as well.

Any thoughts on whether the players' association will agree to blood testing for HGH? I'm going with a solid "no" because I'm not sure how much people really care about athletes cheating and as long as the union can dig in its heels, I don't see much substantive change.

Boy, Cycling Sure is a Dirty Sport

Ladies and gentlemen, your winner of the Women's 100 meter dash in the 2000 Sydney Olympics... Marion Jones! Ekaterini Thanou! Um..

For the 2004 Summer Olympics, Thanou was one of the main hopes of the home crowd for winning an athletics medal. However, on the day prior to the opening ceremony, Thanou and her training partner Konstantinos Kenteris failed to attend a drugs test, and later the same night were hospitalised, claiming they had both been injured in a motorcycle accident. In the ensuing doping scandal, Kenteris and Thanou announced their withdrawal from the Games on August 18, after a hearing before the Disciplinary Commission of the IOC. An official Greek investigation into their alleged accident, ruled that it had been staged. Their coach Christos Tsekos was also suspended and was later caught with large amounts of steroids and other drugs in his possession.

Damn it! Scratch Thanou! Tanya Lawrence? Lawrence, anything? No? Good! For now, your 2000 Women's 100 Meter Dash champion, Jamaican Tanya Lawrence. WAIT, SHE'S FREAKIN' JAMAICAN? Oh Christ...

It's about time

Finally:

The long awaited decision is in, and Floyd Landis has lost his appeal to the American Arbitration Association to overturn the sanction for his positive drug test from the 2006 Tour de France. The three member arbitration panel, led by president Patrice Brunet along with Christopher Campbell and Richard McLaren, was split 2-1 in the guilty verdict, with Campbell dissenting. The decision will likely have some instant effects, with the ASO champing at the bit to remove Landis as the 2006 winner. The next possible steps in the case involve either Landis accepting his sanction from USADA or appealing the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland – with the second much more likely.

It was embarrassing that this took over a year to get done.

Some perspective please?

Vino:

In cycling nobody respects human rights," said Vinokourov in an exclusive interview with Reuters. "The situation is now worse than any other sport. I hope the truth will be found and I am going to fight for it."
Greeted by his father and about 20 supporting fans who were decked out with flowers and banners, Vino said, "I am not going to end my career like this so we will fight on."
Vino denounced cycling's current anti-doping procedures, calling them "a clear violation of human rights." He added, "You have to say three months in advance where you are planning to be, at what hour and minute. It's not possible."

Vino, stop talking. Now. You cheated and got caught. Want to cheat and not get caught? Go play soccer. Or baseball, they celebrate cheats there.

More cycling

Just want to vent today. I'm assuming that German TV has no problems with the Bundesliga as we all know that there is no doping in professional soccer (football). I would just like to see some consistency here. Will they stop showing the Olympics if a swimmer turns up positive in China?

14:1? You're not even trying

14:1 ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone (which is what Landis had, over the 4:1 limit)? Paah. Peanuts to Matthias Kessler (scroll down the link):

Matthias Kessler...tested positive on April 24, and the test showed a testosterone value of 85:1, while a normal value is 4:1. Professor Wilhelm Schaenzer, leader of the Biochemistry Institute at the Sports School in Cologne, Germany, said that a natural value of over 15 to 20 is "not possible." His is currently suspended by his Astana team.

85:1?! 85:1!!! Jesus. And yes, please note that the team is Astana.

Petacchi's Out

Fastest road sprinter in the world, Alessandro Petacchi is not going to the TdF. He was the dominant sprinter in the Giro this year. Speaking of the Giro, Petacchi is suspended, Daniello Diluca (the winner) is under investigation for doping and Eddie Mazzoleni (3rd overall) just got thrown off his team for the TdF for doping. That's a pretty high casualty rate for the race.

Could Levi Lepheimer be this year's Bobby Julich?

In 1998, Bobby Julich took 3rd in the TdF. 1998 was the year of the "Festina Affair" where a bunch of top contenders were thrown out of the race and the race itself was plunged into turmoil. Julich finished 17th in 1997, and hasn't come close to 3rd since 1998. Julich is a quality rider who spent a number of years chasing his TdF dreams after 1998, finally realizing in 2004 or so that he was not going to make the podium anymore and was better suited for the smaller stage races and as a helper for stronger teammates (like Ullrich and Kloden) during the TdF.

Looking at his performance over time, I'd be willing to bet that Julich is clean. He was a very promising rider, a beast against the clock, who went sideways against his peers during the time that doping (EPO) became rampant in the sport. He was a rider who probably could have had a different career if (according to my thesis) he had doped or many others had not.

Well, similar to 1998, a bunch of dopers are not racing the TdF this year: Basso, Ullrich, Landis are already out. I'm waiting for the shoe to drop on Vino and the whole Astana team. With that, the race is wide open and ready for a guy like Lepheimer to take it. He, like Julich, is a very solid rider who's finished in the top-10 in past years. He has been one of those riders who has a bad day, or who just can't make it through the whole 3-week circus at the top of his game, in short, a guy not doping.

My only concern with Lephiemer is his renewed affiliation with the Discovery team. The more I read about them, Lance, Bruneel, Basso, the whole group, the more skeptical I am that they are winning on 'bread and water'. Let's see how Levi races this year. I hope he is this year's Julich, but I'm also afraid that he could be this year's Riis.

Look out...

This could be something:

German Jörg Jaksche, one of dozens of cyclists implicated in the Operación Puerto doping scandal which erupted last year, is set to make a series of stunning revelations about current doping practices. Jaksche's lawyer Michael Lehner said on Friday the German, who has protested his innocence but been suspended from all competition due to his alleged links to the affair, will reveal all in German weekly magazine Der Spiegel on Monday... Jaksche, the 2004 Paris-Nice winner who joined the Russian second division outfit Tinkoff in April, appears ready to make his own contribution by revealing all he knows about doping. Lehner said the former Liberty Seguros rider "will not just admit to doping himself, but will shed light on what really goes on in the peloton, and who the main (doping) protagonists are."

We'll see on Monday if this is something or just more noise.

From Lance to Landis

Well, I finished the Walsh book. He makes a very compelling circumstantial case that Lance was doping. A few things stood out for me:

First is hCG. hCG is a hormone that stimulates the production of testosterone in males (oddly, it's also the hormone whose presence indicates that a woman is pregnant). In most males, its concentration is about 1 or 2 nanograms per milliliter of blood and it's almost always below 5 nanograms/ml. Synthetic hCG is also used after a round of steroids because the steriods suppress production of testosterone. As such, agencies test for hCG because higher levels of hCG point to steroid usage. A positive result for hCG will get you a 2-year suspension in the biking world.

Males with testicular cancer have much higher concentrations of hCG and a few cyclists have failed drug tests and have been found to have testicular cancer and have subsequently been cured of the cancer and, of course, cleared of doping.

When Lance was diagnosed with cancer, his level of hCG was over 50,000 nanograms/ml. The question is then, how did he not fail a test? He was tested numerous times during the year. What happened? Neither he nor the UCI has commented on how it happened.

Second is the weight loss (or lack thereof). The conventional story is that Lance lost 20 lbs. when he had cancer and being 20 lbs. lighter was a prime reason why he could suddenly climb. As it turns out, he may have only been 2-3 lbs. lighter. His racing weight prior to cancer was about 75 kg, and he's quoted as saying that he was happy starting his TdF's in the low 74 kg range. Strange, because he looked much different pre and post-cancer, but the numbers show that he may not have lost much body weight at all come race time.

Third is the re-testing of his old samples and having them come up positive for EPO (this was the big scandal from last year).

All in all, it's a pretty damning book for Lance, but I'd be much more comfortable if Walsh could tell us how he did it, and how current cyclists are doing it. How did Lance not test positive? It's apparent that doping is rampant in the peleton these days, how are all of the riders getting away with it?

The rest of the book tells a sordid tale too - George Hincapie is alleged to have received testosterone, there is a whole chapter that skewers Tyler Hamilton and another that puts the fork in Floyd Landis.

If you want to have your enthusiasm for the sport of cycling dampened right before the TdF, read this book.

I've been losing my enthusiasm for professional cycling for a while now and this may put the final nail in the coffin. I may have to switch 100% of my fandom to Formula 1 and America's Cup sail racing.

Or, there's always this.

Lance and Landis

I'm reading David Walsh's new book on doping in cycling. The book focuses on Lance, but paints a really bleak picture about how pervasive doping is in professional cycling. I'll have detailed thoughts once I finish.